buck-passing

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Shifting responsibility or blame to someone else

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

tránh trách nhiệm hoặc đổ lỗi cho người khác

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: passing a buck
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The manager was accused of buck-passing when the project failed

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “buck-passing” mean?

Shifting responsibility or blame to someone else Literally: passing a buck

Is “buck-passing” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.