paper over

verb

1. (tr, adverb) to conceal (something controversial or unpleasant)

Idioms and Phrases

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.

Example Sentences

Vilifying Japan is a handy way to rile the Chinese public and paper over the challenges that ordinary people face, said Friso Stevens, a Fulbright scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

And I agree with Coates when he criticized Klein for whitewashing Charlie Kirk’s legacy, and agree that while we should not celebrate a person’s death, we also shouldn’t paper over who they were in life.

Read more on Slate

Martin said that their encouraging performances can't be allowed to paper over the cracks of the women's game in Scotland.

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Yet no amount of citations could paper over how thoroughly Alito’s ruling misapprehends Yoder.

Read more on Slate

Matheus Nunes is a midfielder playing at right-back and though City managed to paper over it during the group stages, the square peg in a round hole was glaringly obvious once up against decent opposition.

Read more on BBC