paper over

verb

tr, adverb to conceal (something controversial or unpleasant)

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, paper over the cracks . Repair superficially, conceal, especially flaws. For example, He used some accounting gimmicks to paper over a deficit , or It was hardly a perfect settlement, but they decided to paper over the cracks . The German statesman Otto von Bismarck first used this analogy in a letter in 1865, and the first recorded example in English, in 1910, referred to it. The allusion is to covering cracked plaster with wallpaper, thereby improving its appearance but not the underlying defect.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

And to paper over this destructive policy, the administration will blow another gaping hole in the federal budget with bailout money to compensate the victims.

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I skeptically looked the paper over.

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She also accused Trump of trying to "paper over the history and reality of that dark day".

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Those who did not comply, like air pollution expert Dan Costa, found that they “had a bullseye on us,” adding that “people objected when I felt that this administration coming in would number one, go after that regulatory program, and number two, because climate was in there, that it was just going to paper over the whole situation.”

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“People objected when I felt that this administration coming in would number one, go after that regulatory program, and number two, because climate was in there, that it was just going to paper over the whole situation.”

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

paper nautilus paperperson

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