punching bag

noun

1. an inflated or stuffed bag, usually suspended, punched with the fists as an exercise.
2. Informal. a person serving as an object of abuse; scapegoat:

   I told him that I wasn't going to be a punching bag for anyone.

Word History and Origins

Origin of punching bag¹

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

So this is Kendall Roy, once the family golden boy and now the punching bag.

From Vox

If they had managed to hold that lead over the Rams, it would have made him far less of a punching bag.

From FiveThirtyEight

“We’re just human punching bags,” the nurse, Jesse Telford, told a Boston TV station.

From Washington Post

For however long, if not forever, Nielsen’s panel has been a punching bag for both TV networks and TV advertisers to complain that they were the ones getting a raw deal.

From Digiday

For instance, he points out, Charlemagne treated Saxony like his own personal punching bag.

From The Daily Beast

He has become something of a critical punching bag of late, a thought that seemed impossible for most of his career.

From The Daily Beast

Kardashian's most famous gig was as Paris Hilton's own closet organizer/punching bag/silent friend.

From The Daily Beast

A punching bag as treasury secretary, Geithner finally gets to unload in ‘Stress Test.’

From The Daily Beast

Walmart is clearly growing tired of being a punching bag and poster child for low wages.

From The Daily Beast

You know my little two-room affair behind the chapel,—only a few books and a punching bag.

From Project Gutenberg

They were shoving some one here and there, making a punching bag of him, at the same time laughing uproariously.

From Project Gutenberg

Weighing about one hundred and thirty pounds my work upon the human punching bag was beginning to tell.

From Project Gutenberg

The punching-bag and other purely masculine paraphernalia had been banished to his own room, and the living-room, alas!

From Project Gutenberg

I made it into a tight bundle and hung it on a springy limb to use for a punching-bag.

From Project Gutenberg