Word.ws English Dictionary

paper trails

paper trails is the plural of paper trail.

Meaning of paper trail

Noun

paper trail (plural paper trails)

  1. (idiomatic) A written record, history, or collection of evidence.
    • Keep a good paper trail in case anyone asks you why you arrived at that conclusion.
  2. (idiomatic) Records left by a person or organization in the course of activities.
    • With a good paperwork system in place, including a working paper trail, it becomes much easier to manage the flow of relevant information regarding your plants and orders.2003, Tony Avent, So You Want to Start a Nursery, page 265
  3. (broadly) Physical evidence of something that occurred in the past.
    • Beginning in the late 20th century, researchers were able to analyze the mtDNA and Y chromosomes of multiple races around the world, revealing a DNA paper trail that led back to eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago.2012, Paul Parsons, Science in 100 Key Breakthroughs

Questions about paper trails

What is paper trails the plural of?
Paper trails is the plural of paper trail.

Words near paper trails in the dictionary

  1. paper trader
  2. paper traders
  3. paper trades
  4. paper trading
  5. paper trail
  6. paper trails
  7. paper tripping
  8. paper wall
  9. paper wallet
  10. paper wallets
  11. paper walls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paper trails (page history and authors); paper trail (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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Cite this entry: “paper trails.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paper_trails. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.