Etymology

buck-passing

Today it means: Blameshifting; the act of absolving oneself of responsibility or concern for a given matter by claiming to lack authority or jurisdiction. Full definition →

English passing ← Middle English passen ← Old French passer
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The story

  1. Englishbuck
  2. Proto-Indo-European*peth₂-
  3. Proto-Italic*pattus
  4. Latinpassus
  5. Vulgar Latin*passāre
  6. Old Frenchpasser
  7. Middle Englishpassen
  8. Englishpass
  9. Englishpassing
  10. English todaybuck-passing

From buck + passing.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.