take the rap

Meaning: To accept blame or punishment, often for someone else.

Language: English

Literally: (Already vivid in English)

Example: “The youngest employee took the rap for the missing cash.”

Category: Daily Life

Origin: A "rap" was a criminal charge in American slang from the 1900s, as in "rap sheet." Taking the rap meant being the one charged.

Equivalents in other languages

Portuguese: Pagar o pato — literally: To pay the duck
German: etwas auf seine Kappe nehmen — literally: to take something onto one's cap

you can't win them all — Said to console someone after a small failure.
right on cue — At exactly the right moment.
you snooze, you lose — If you are slow to act, someone else will take the chance.
go off without a hitch — To happen smoothly, with no problems.
lose one's shirt — To lose all one's money.
every little bit helps — Even a small contribution is worth having.

smell a rat — To sense that something dishonest is going on.
a hard nut to crack — A difficult problem, or a person who is hard to deal with.
have a finger in every pie — To be involved in many different things at once.
get the wrong end of the stick — To misunderstand something completely.
have a bee in one's bonnet — To be obsessed with one idea.
put down roots — To settle somewhere permanently.

Red lorry, yellow lorry. — The 'l/r' alternation drill — deceptively short, yet almost impossible to say fast withou…
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? — A 'w/ch/ck' drill that accelerates comically — and nobody really knows the answer.
The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. — Believed by Guinness to be among the hardest in English — 'six/sick/sheikh/sheep' blur in…