MEANING
To take the blame or responsibility for something that has gone wrong.
Use it for
describing someone blamed for a shared failure; showing responsibility falling on one person; criticizing an unfair allocation of blame; naming the person left answerable for a mistakeNames bearing blame or responsibility, often when others are also at fault. Writing functions: Blame and responsibility.
Words that belong together
- carry the can for a mistake
- be left to carry the can
On the page
The contractor disappeared, leaving the site manager to carry the can.
She refused to carry the can for a decision the entire committee had approved.
Word forms
- Base
- carry the can
Usage notes
Verbal idiom, especially British English: carry/carries/carried/carrying the can; often carry the can for something. Register: informal. Commonness: common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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