| 1. | a substance made from wood pulp, rags, straw, or other fibrous material, usually in thin sheets, used to bear writing or printing, for wrapping things, etc. |
| 2. | a piece, sheet, or leaf of this. |
| 3. | something resembling this substance, as papyrus. |
| 4. | a written or printed document or the like. |
| 5. | stationery; writing paper. |
| 6. | a newspaper or journal. |
| 7. | an essay, article, or dissertation on a particular topic: a paper on early Mayan artifacts. |
| 8. | Often, papers. a document establishing or verifying identity, status, or the like: citizenship papers. |
| 9. | negotiable notes, bills, etc., as commercial paper or paper money: Only silver, please, no paper. |
| 10. | a promissory note. |
| 11. | papers,
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| 12. | wallpaper. |
| 13. | toilet paper. |
| 14. | a sheet or card of paper with pins or needles stuck through it in rows. |
| 15. | a set of questions for an examination, an individual set of written answers to them, or any written piece of schoolwork. |
| 16. | Slang. a free pass to an entertainment. |
| 17. | to cover with wallpaper or apply wallpaper to: They papered the bedroom last summer. |
| 18. | to line or cover with paper. |
| 19. | to distribute handbills, posters, etc., throughout: to paper a neighborhood with campaign literature. |
| 20. | to fold, enclose, or wrap in paper. |
| 21. | to supply with paper. |
| 22. | Informal. to deluge with documents, esp. those requiring one to comply with certain technical procedures, as a means of legal harassment: He papered the plaintiff to force a settlement. |
| 23. | Slang. to fill (a theater or the like) with spectators by giving away free tickets or passes. |
| 24. | Archaic.
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| 25. | to apply wallpaper to walls. |
| 26. | made of paper or paperlike material: a paper bag. |
| 27. | paperlike; thin, flimsy, or frail. |
| 28. | of, pertaining to, or noting routine clerical duties. |
| 29. | pertaining to or carried on by means of letters, articles, books, etc.: a paper war. |
| 30. | written or printed on paper. |
| 31. | existing in theory or principle only and not in reality: paper profits. |
| 32. | indicating the first event of a series, as a wedding anniversary. |
| 33. | Slang. including many patrons admitted on free passes, as an audience for a theatrical performance: It's a paper house tonight. |
| 34. | paper over, to patch up or attempt to conceal (a difference, disagreement, etc.) so as to preserve a friendship, present a unified opinion, etc.: to paper over a dispute. |
| 35. | on paper,
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paper
paper over
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.