green tape
- noun
- /ɡrin teɪp/
- Formal
:
trámites burocráticos
- His team spent months cutting through green tape to get permits for the new project.
Examples
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She criticized the government for adding more green tape to environmental approval processes.
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Many companies struggle to expand their operations because of all the green tape involved.
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The project was delayed by green tape.
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Many companies struggle with green tape in their operations.
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His team spent months cutting through green tape to get permits for the new project.
-
Many companies struggle to expand their operations because of all the green tape involved.
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She criticized the government for adding more green tape to environmental approval processes.
Synonyms
187
6.3
A system run by officials who are not elected with many rules that makes things slow
55
3.8
Official rules and steps that are slow and make things difficult
1
7.2
An official process with many slow, pointless steps that delays decisions
Many confusing rules and laws that make things hard to understand or follow
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
green + tape
The bureaucratic sense of "green tape" is not a straightforward composition of 'green' (environmental) + 'tape' (literal object); it is an idiomatic extension of the established metaphor 'red tape' and requires cultural or phraseological knowledge. A B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would likely interpret it literally (green-colored tape or environmental topic) and not infer the meaning 'bureaucratic rules', so the expression is opaque to such learners.
Etymology
Green tape comes from the older phrase red tape and paints a clear picture: imagine a new project wrapped in bright green tape because of environmental rules, so nothing can move. So it means 'official rules' or 'paperwork' that slow or stop projects, often for environmental reasons.