Word.ws English Dictionary

death by a thousand papercuts

death by a thousand papercuts is the alternative form of death by a thousand paper cuts.

Meaning of death by a thousand paper cuts

Noun

death by a thousand paper cuts

  1. (idiomatic) An ultimate negative outcome, such as the failure of a project, brought about by an excessive number of bureaucratic hurdles.

Questions about death by a thousand papercuts

What is death by a thousand papercuts the alternative form of?
Death by a thousand papercuts is the alternative form of death by a thousand paper cuts.

Words near death by a thousand papercuts in the dictionary

  1. death blows
  2. death book
  3. death books
  4. death by a thousand cuts
  5. death by a thousand paper cuts
  6. death by a thousand papercuts
  7. death by chocolate
  8. death by coconut
  9. death by cop
  10. death by misadventure
  11. death by PowerPoint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: death by a thousand papercuts (page history and authors); death by a thousand paper cuts (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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