[wawl-pey-per] 
| 1. | paper, usually with printed decorative patterns in color, for pasting on and covering the walls or ceilings of rooms, hallways, etc. |
| 2. | any fabric, foil, vinyl material, etc., used as a wall or ceiling covering. |
| 3. | to put wallpaper on (a wall, ceiling, etc.) or to furnish (a room, house, etc.) with wallpaper. |
| wall·pa·per (wôl'pā'pər) n.
v. tr. To cover with or as if with wallpaper. v. intr. To decorate a wall or room with wallpaper. |
wallpaper
|
Wallpaper
The name given to stocks, bonds and other securities that have become worthless.
Investopedia Commentary
The securities may have lost all monetary value because of bankruptcy or for other reasons. This term implies that since the certificates are worthless and you may as well wallpaper your house with them. Former dotcom companies that went bankrupt are good examples of wallpaper stocks.
Related Links
Old Stock Certificates: Lost Treasure or Wallpaper?
An Overview Of Corporate Bankruptcy
Do Your Investments Have Short-Term Health?
See also: Bankruptcy, Certificate, Scripophily, Security, Stock
Also spelled: wall paper, wall-paper
wallpaper
1. A file containing a listing (e.g. assembly listing) or a transcript, especially a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows).
The term is now rare, especially since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g. PHOTO on TWENEX). However, the Unix world doesn't have an equivalent term, so perhaps wallpaper will take hold there. The term probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin and end transcript files were ":WALBEG" and ":WALEND", with default file "WALL PAPER" (the space was a path delimiter).
2. The background pattern used on graphical workstations under the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface to MS-DOS.
(1994-12-22)
pər
