death by a thousand paper cuts
Meanings
noun
- An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles.
Word forms
Etymology
Blend of death by a thousand cuts + paper cut. The "thousand cuts" of the original phrase are now inflicted by paper, a metonym for bureaucracy.
Related words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.