noun

• A character representing or associated with Lent in a festival pageant, mummers' play, etc. Also: an effigy of a man, typically made of straw and dressed in rags, paraded through the streets or set up as a target during Lent, and destroyed on Easter Day; (figurative and in figurative contexts) a target for criticism or ridicule. Now chiefly historical.

  Sometimes representing Judas Iscariot.