Idiom
death by a thousand paper cuts
Meaning
An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The project failed from death by a thousand paper cuts.”
“Too many small fees lead to death by a thousand paper cuts.”
“We lost the contract because of death by a thousand paper cuts, as every small rule change slowed us down.”
“Our renovation is facing death by a thousand paper cuts because the city inspector keeps finding tiny errors in our paperwork every single week.”
“The once-thriving company eventually collapsed, suffering a slow death by a thousand paper cuts caused by endless administrative delays and minor policy shifts.”
Examples
simple
“The project failed from death by a thousand paper cuts.”
“Too many small fees lead to death by a thousand paper cuts.”
contextual
“We lost the contract because of death by a thousand paper cuts, as every small rule change slowed us down.”
“Our renovation is facing death by a thousand paper cuts because the city inspector keeps finding tiny errors in our paperwork every single week.”
complex
“The once-thriving company eventually collapsed, suffering a slow death by a thousand paper cuts caused by endless administrative delays and minor policy shifts.”
Origin
A blend of the phrases death by a thousand cuts and paper cut, the idiom employs paper as a metonym for the inconveniences of bureaucracy. The original thousand cuts refers to *lingchi*, a form of imperial Chinese execution involving a slow and systematic removal of portions of the body. In the modern variation, the blade is replaced by stationery; the terminal result remains the same, though the paperwork is considerably more tedious.
Key words
Related idioms
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