paper

make the papers be written about or given attention as news.

not worth the paper it is written on (of an agreement, promise, etc.) of no value or validity whatsoever.

on paper

1 in writing.

2 in theory rather than in reality.

paper over the cracks disguise problems or divisions rather than trying to solve them.

☞ The phrase is a translation of a German expression used by the statesman Otto von Bismarck in a letter of 1865, and early uses refer to this.

a paper tiger an apparently dangerous but actually ineffectual person or thing.

☞ This expression became well known in the West from its use by Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist leader. In an interview in 1946, he expressed the view that 'all reactionaries are paper tigers'.

2013Business Insider The problem that he finds himself in and has placed us in is that if he does not take action now after making these statements, then we become a paper tiger to the rest of the world.

send in your papers resign, especially (of an officer in the armed services) resign your commission. dated