Meaning
To deal with a problem, disagreement or defect only superficially, making the situation look acceptable while leaving the underlying difficulty untouched. Chiefly British, and typically critical of short-term fixes in politics, institutions, budgets or relationships. Critical of the quick fix, and especially common in political and financial commentary in British English. Regional use: British English.
Origin
The metaphor is the household economy of pasting paper over cracks in walls instead of repairing them: the Pall Mall Gazette of 18 May 1872 describes a poor couple who had pasted brown paper over innumerable cracks and chinks. The earliest figurative English use located by Word Histories is in the Essex Standard of 16 March 1889, which refers to an old Colchester cleric's expedient of 'papering over the cracks'; the quotation marks suggest the expression was already familiar. A close German parallel appears slightly earlier, in Bismarck's letter of 14 August 1865 during the negotiations over the Convention of Gastein, promising to preserve the peace and cover the cracks in the building, but the English idiom may well have arisen independently from the wallpapering practice rather than as a translation. The documented citations, and the phrase's strongest current use, are British.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- paper over something
- paper over the cracks in something
- papered over the cracks
- papering over the cracks
Usage Examples
- The merger announcement papered over the cracks, but staff could see the two cultures were miles apart.
- A fresh coat of paint and an upbeat press release will only paper over the cracks in the housing programme.
- Rather than paper over the cracks with another short-term subsidy, the review urged structural reform.