red tape

English

Bundle of US pension documents from 1906 bound in red tape

Etymology

• Thought to allude to the former practice of binding government documents in red-coloured tape

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

red tape (uncountable)

1. The binding tape once used for holding important documents together.
   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619:

     At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.

2. (metonymically, idiomatic) Time-consuming regulations or bureaucratic procedures.

   All the red tape and paperwork that goes on there prevents any progress.

Synonyms

• administrivia
• administrativia
• paperwork

Translations

excessive bureaucracy

• Afrikaans: rompslomp
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 繁文縟節 (zh), 繁文缛节 (zh) (fánwénrùjié), 官僚習氣, 官僚習氣 (guānliáo xíqì)

• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: paarse krokodil m or f
• Finnish: paperisota (fi)
• French: impôt papier m, paperasse (fr) f paperasserie (fr) f
• German: Amtsschimmel (de) m

• Hindi: लालफ़ीता m (lālfītā)
• Japanese: 繁文縟礼 (ja) (hanbun jokurei), レッドテープ (reddo teepu), (slang) お役所さんの仕事 (o-yakusho-san no shigoto)
• Persian: کاغذبازی‎ (fa) (kâğaz-bâzi)
• Portuguese: burocracia (pt) f
• Russian: бюрократи́зм (ru) m (bjurokratízm), канцеля́рщина (ru) f (kanceljárščina), волоки́та (ru) f (volokíta)
• Spanish: papeleo (es) m, burocracia (es) f, cinta roja f, expedienteo m, papelerío m, trámites (es) m pl, gestión (es) f, formalismos (es) m pl, formulismos (es) m pl
• Swedish: byråkrati (sv)

Derived terms

• red tape gone mad (idiomatic)
• red-tapist

Usage notes

• For the figurative sense of bureaucratic procedures, the metaphor is often extended, e.g. cutting [through] red tape, bound up in red tape.

Anagrams

• adepter, pad-tree, pre-date, predate, readept, retaped, tapered