red tape
55
3.8
- noun
- /rɛd teɪp/
- Informal
:
burocracia
- There is a lot of red tape, but man, a lot of those regulations were created for very good reasons, right?
- bureaucratic red tape
- cut red tape
- corruption and red tape
And I really think Donald Trump here is generally for less red tape.
- And I really think Donald Trump here is generally for less red tape.
- Things move a lot slower in India and there's way more red tape.
- How did the feds cut through all that red tape and help the locals solve housing problems?
- Instead of having to waste resources and time on government red tape, you know that they could have devoted those resources to becoming more, more productive.
- Excessive regulation, which we often call red tape, stands in contrast to justified regulation, where social benefits outweigh social costs.
- I, I, I would cut the, all of the red tape, you know, I, I would invest in the right areas and take out.
- In very intense rules for people who pay taxes and play by the rules of I mean insane amount of regulation red tape.
- Yeah, that amount of red tape and like UPS, they got to jump through.
- And so much responsibility, so much red tape and so much bullshit and it broke me the fuck off.
Examples
-
I never thought she'd get through all that red tape so fast.
Fiction book (1997) -
We tried to get some, but it would have taken months to clear up the red tape.
-
But the all the red tape that gets in the way makes it very difficult to get there.
-
That is key is to learn how to, how to sell and go through all the red tape to sell to the government.
-
The group criticized the "legal red tape and procedures" that would prevent a consumer organization from "speaking for its membership."
Academic text (2016) -
Twelve months of red tape have left us feeling very antsy.
Fiction book (2002) -
Modify the certification program to cut red tape and make the certification process more efficient.
Blog text (16) -
So after a lot of bureaucratic red tape, an extradition order is issued.
-
The homeschool teacher can make spontaneous decisions as needed without all the red tape and administrative constraints.
Academic text (2001) -
The company is frustrated with all the red tape that delays the project's approval.
Synonyms
187
6.3
A system run by officials who are not elected with many rules that makes things slow
3
7.4
Many rules that make doing things harder than necessary
1
7.2
An official process with many slow, pointless steps that delays decisions
Following official rules so strictly that it causes extra delay
Many confusing rules and laws that make things hard to understand or follow
Slow official rules and paperwork that delay projects, often about the environment
Antonyms
How Bureaucratic
Surface Forms
Morphology
red + tape
The meaning 'excessive bureaucracy' cannot be derived from the literal senses of 'red' (a colour) and 'tape' (a strip of material); a B1 learner who knows the constituents would most likely interpret it literally (a piece of red tape). This is a conventionalized idiom with a historical origin and cross-linguistic equivalents that use different metaphors, so the bureaucratic sense is unpredictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Red tape comes from old officials who tied important papers with red tape so the papers stayed together. Seeing long bundles of paperwork gave a clear picture of slow, official rules, so now red tape means those rules that cause 'delay'.