Synonyms

pass the buck

Cultural

To shift blame from oneself to another person: “Passing the buck is a way of life in large bureaucracies.” (See the buck stops here.)

pass the buck Idioms

Shift responsibility or blame elsewhere, as in She's always passing the buck to her staff; it's time she accepted the blame herself. This expression dates from the mid-1800s, when in a poker game a piece of buckshot or another object was passed around to remind a player that he was the next dealer. It acquired its present meaning by about 1900.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

With Pike and McIndoe saying they were following directions from above, and Garcia and the battalion chief from the prior shift appearing to pass the buck to others, it is unclear who made the decision to leave the Lachman fire.

From Los Angeles Times

Although Manuel, Barker and Miss J pass the buck plenty of times, too, the agonizing recall of their collective firing in 2012 allows them to come off more sympathetically.

From Salon

Indeed, her focus on grand jury materials controlled by the judiciary is plainly an effort to pass the buck and obscure the fact that she has some independent authority to disclose information.

From Slate

It suggested the State Bar was trying to pass the buck for its own failures.

From Los Angeles Times

That made me start thinking, well, is there any way we can distinguish the good or bad accountability sink, or arrangements where someone is actually doing something necessary versus someone just trying to pass the buck.

From Salon

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023