paper trail
nounDefinition of paper trail
: documents (such as financial records) from which a person's actions may be traced or opinions learned
Examples of paper trail in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Though there has been a push to digitize medical records, the tangled evolution of e-health technology has, for many patients, led to a fragmented paper trail filled with gaps. — Angela Chen, The Verge, "Amazon will reportedly sell software that reads medical records," 27 Nov. 2018 Records from the radios were a key part of the paper trail laid out in the affidavits supporting the criminal complaints against the troopers. — Martin Finucane, BostonGlobe.com, "Key evidence in alleged trooper overtime scam came from cruiser radios," 27 June 2018 His brother’s finances, supervised by the court, have more of a paper trail. — Joseph Neff, New York Times, "They Did 30 Years for Someone Else’s Crime. Then Paid for It.," 7 Apr. 2018 Joy Reid has got an amazing second chance going right now after a paper trail of homophobia. — Fox News, "ABC axes 'Roseanne' following star's racially-charged tweet," 30 May 2018 And government watchdog investigators are now systematically building a paper trail of Pruitt’s time at the EPA. — Umair Irfan, Vox, "Every legal and ethical investigation into the EPA’s Scott Pruitt we know of so far," 12 Apr. 2018 Five states use voting machines that don't produce an auditable paper trail of ballots, which the committee said should be the minimum security standard. — Chris Megerian, latimes.com, "U.S. election systems need stronger defenses against cyberattacks, senators warn," 20 Mar. 2018 Kavanaugh, who worked for Ken Starr on the Clinton investigation and also for the Bush White House, was deemed vulnerable over the long paper trail from those jobs and his tenure on the bench. — Howard Kurtz, Fox News, "The Media's Mixed Signals: How Trump got to Brett Kavanaugh," 9 July 2018 The paper trail stretching from 1999 to 2012 was irrefutable, leading the three defendants to plead guilty with no plea deal. — Jay Weaver, miamiherald, "This couple stole millions from an MIA lounge. Now they’re doing prison time. | Miami Herald," 5 Apr. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'paper trail.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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