folk devil

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

folk devil (plural folk devils)

  1. (idiomatic, sociology) A person or type of person blamed by the public for various ills, as during a moral panic.
    • 1987 July 9, Steve Lohr, “Newcastle Journal: Half of England where jobs are as rare as Tories”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, retrieved 27 February 2009:
      It may be true, as Fred Robinson, a senior researcher at Newcastle University said, "Many people view Mrs. Thatcher as a kind of folk devil.
      (Can we archive this URL?)
    • 1996 December 18, Robert Verkaik, “‘Crash’ tackling”, in The Independent‎[2], London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 February 2026:
      "Every time things become problematic we start careering towards social causes and pick on a folk devil to attribute all evil."
    • 2013 October 20, Jesse Walker, “Conspiracies: Five things they don’t want you to know”, in Boston Globe‎[3], archived from the original on 3 August 2026:
      There is always a tendency, in the mainstream as much as the fringes, to blame real or imagined social problems on a folk devil.

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