A boy educated together with a young prince or royal personage, and flogged in his stead when he committed a fault that was considered to deserve flogging. Hence allusively.
1647. Trapp, Comm. 1 Tim. v. 20. Rebuke before all: yet not as if they were whipping boyes.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time, I. (1724), I. 59. William Murray of the bed-chamber, that had been whipping boy to King Charles the first.
1822. Scott, Nigel, vi. Sir Mungo had been … attached to Court in the capacity of whipping-boy … to King James the Sixth.
1841. Helps, Ess., On Choice of Agents. The choice of agents is a difficult matter,… for you have to choose persons for whose faults you are to be punished; to whom you are to be the whipping-boy.
1914. Petrie, in Anc. Egypt, 32. With some writers … Manetho is the whipping-boy, who must always be flogged whenever anything is not understood.
