death by a thousand paper cuts in English

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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. Etymology templates: {{blend|en|death by a thousand cuts|paper cut}} Blend of death by a thousand cuts + paper cut, {{glossary|metonym}} metonym Head templates: {{head|en|noun|head=death by a thousand paper cuts}} death by a thousand paper cuts

Alternative forms

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{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "death by a thousand cuts",
        "3": "paper cut"
      },
      "expansion": "Blend of death by a thousand cuts + paper cut",
      "name": "blend"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "metonym"
      },
      "expansion": "metonym",
      "name": "glossary"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "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.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun",
        "head": "death by a thousand paper cuts"
      },
      "expansion": "death by a thousand paper cuts",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English blends",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles."
      ],
      "id": "en-death_by_a_thousand_paper_cuts-en-noun-TU465AJM",
      "links": [
        [
          "outcome",
          "outcome"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ],
        [
          "bureaucratic",
          "bureaucratic"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "the straw that broke the camel's back"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "death by a thousand papercuts"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "death by a thousand paper cuts"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "death by a thousand cuts",
        "3": "paper cut"
      },
      "expansion": "Blend of death by a thousand cuts + paper cut",
      "name": "blend"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "metonym"
      },
      "expansion": "metonym",
      "name": "glossary"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "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.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun",
        "head": "death by a thousand paper cuts"
      },
      "expansion": "death by a thousand paper cuts",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "the straw that broke the camel's back"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English blends",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "outcome",
          "outcome"
        ],
        [
          "project",
          "project"
        ],
        [
          "bureaucratic",
          "bureaucratic"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "death by a thousand papercuts"
    }
  ],
  "word": "death by a thousand paper cuts"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (c15a5ce and 5c11237). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"death by a thousand paper cuts" meaning in English

Noun

Alternative forms