paper over

British

verb

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

paper over Idioms

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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

paper over

The contradictions are getting harder to paper over, as evidenced by Alex Clark’s mess of a speech.

From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2026

Charles capitalized on his address to Congress -- the first by a British monarch since his mother Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 -- to paper over those tensions.

From Barron's ● Apr. 29, 2026

Federal pandemic largesse helped paper over the district’s budget problems for a time and supercharged hiring.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026

A side aware of their cracks but unable to paper over them, never mind fix them.

From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026

“Just sit up here,” Chloe says, pulling fresh paper over the table.

From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023