red tape
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Red-tape reformers have failed because they assume the problem is a matter of degree — that there are just too many rules.
From Washington Post • Dec. 13, 2016
Red-tape Worm predicts that in the postwar world human reflexes will be deliberately conditioned soon after birth.
From Time Magazine Archive
Despite a handsome time advantage in filing�seven hours in Moscow, eleven in Novosibirsk�many dispatches missed their U.S. deadlines because of interminable, often unexplained Red-tape delays.
From Time Magazine Archive
The young man flees, falls, regains consciousness to hear a voice say: "Red-tape Worm really had forgotten the soul."
From Time Magazine Archive
Red-tape, name given to official formality, from the red-tape employed in tying official documents, whence "red-tapism."
From The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by Nuttall, P. Austin
