How to Use patsy in a Sentence

patsy

noun

• They treated us like a bunch of patsies.
• Was someone just trying to frame Cazes, to use him as a patsy?
  — Andy Greenberg, WIRED, 1 Nov. 2022
• Hasn’t Denver played the patsy, used and abused by the Chiefs, for too long?
  — Mark Kiszla, The Denver Post, 14 Dec. 2019
• The reason the episode works so well is because Homer makes the perfect patsy, of sorts.
  — Jesse David Fox, Vulture, 17 Dec. 2024
• Matt Campbell’s team at Iowa State sets up as the patsy today.
  — oregonlive, 2 Jan. 2021
• Getting rid of Notre Dame from football schedule to play a patsy?
  — Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug. 2024
• The president has argued that Cornyn is a patsy for the Democrats.
  — Laura Washington, Chicago Tribune, 11 Mar. 2026
• Indeed, what if the whole lurid rap sheet has been an elaborate set-up, with Nero as history’s patsy?
  — Gaia Squarci, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Sep. 2020
• He was often portrayed as a DOGE patsy, perhaps even a fool.
  — Eli Hager, ProPublica, 8 Sep. 2025
• History has at times portrayed these brothers as naïve, almost as patsies.
  — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2017
• The great military tactician seemed a patsy for every scoundrel and proved a woeful judge of character.
  — Karen Heller, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2017
• The problem is, the Buffaloes paid a physical price for not scheduling patsies.
  — oregonlive, 11 Oct. 2019
• The second is that Jack is a red herring or a patsy, and that Eleanor is the primary villain of the season.
  — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 8 Dec. 2021
• The same prime minister who exaggerates his power is also fine with being portrayed as the patsy of more influential actors.
  — Aluf Benn, Foreign Affairs, 10 Nov. 2025
• Massachusetts citizens are not patsies with wallets.
  — Boston Herald Editorial Staff, Boston Herald, 10 Feb. 2026
• Despite this track record of stealth and success, liberals have often dismissed Thomas as stupid or a sellout, a patsy and a puppet, the Justice who cannot speak.
  — Corey Robin, The New Yorker, 9 July 2022
• While the Angels won four of their six games against the Yankees this season, no team has played the patsy for the Yankees over the last two decades like the Twins have.
  — Billy Witz, New York Times, 19 Sep. 2017
• Anyone familiar with this kind of setup knows that simple offers are inevitably anything but, and rarely turn out to be worth the money — that is, assuming the poor patsy ever sees the money.
  — Catherine Bray, Variety, 1 Oct. 2024
• Then Kay served notice that the White Sox, after losing the record 121 games in 2024, are through playing patsies.
  — Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 19 Apr. 2026
• The Minnesota Wild’s blip is officially a stumble as the slumping, skidding team once again was a patsy against the Winnipeg Jets.
  — Michael Russo, The Athletic, 22 Dec. 2024
• Actor David Oyelowo gets a rare comic lead as the film’s title character, a sweet-natured and naive corporate patsy named Harold Soyinka.
  — Ty Burr, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Mar. 2018
• The difference is that Horton was a pachyderm patsy, snookered into pro bono egg-tending by a ne’er-do-well bird, while Glennon will make a cool $16 million this year.
  — Pat Fitzmaurice, SI.com, 2 Aug. 2017
• The Baltimore Orioles have become baseball’s patsies this season, entering Monday with a six-game losing streak and the worst record in the majors.
  — New York Times, 9 July 2018
• Gwen champions Chelsea for advocating for her needs, but Gwen’s obviously the patsy here, running to turn up the thermostat the second Chelsea asks.
  — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 6 Oct. 2025
• On Saturday, a trio of schools from the humble Sun Belt Conference took the money—and then staged a rebellion against the practice of playing the patsy for the big boys.
  — Laine Higgins, WSJ, 11 Sep. 2022
• The move to the College Football Playoff in 2014 has quickly prompted teams with big ambitions to wean themselves off the longtime habit of scheduling patsies for pre-conference games.
  — Laine Higgins, WSJ, 29 Aug. 2017
• Slightly, meanwhile, targets Joe as his patsy to smuggle a Xenomorph embryo out of Prodigy, still resentful that Wendy’s family is here safely while his mother is far away and being threatened by Morrow.
  — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 9 Sep. 2025
• Robert Carlyle portrays Jack Ruby, the chameleon associate of organized crime and Jefferson White is playing Lee Harvey Oswald, the patsy that was set up by The Outfit.
  — Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 1 May 2026