How to Use paper tiger in a Sentence

paper tiger

noun
  • The new laws are just paper tigers without any method of enforcement.
  • Go and deal with this paper tiger.
    — Alia Shoaib, MSNBC Newsweek, 3 Oct. 2025
  • The only thing that the Democrats and these crazy liberals have is this paper tiger.
    — FOXNews.com, 24 Oct. 2025
  • That's a problem for a climate movement that looks good on the web but is a paper tiger in the real world.
    — Keith Kloor, Discover Magazine, 24 July 2012
  • Until last weekend, Beijing’s statutes were a paper tiger.
    — Steve H. Hanke, Fortune, 4 May 2026
  • Meanwhile, the Bucks — less than a week removed from owning an 18-game win streak — were cast as a paper tiger.
    — Matt Velazquez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5 Feb. 2020
  • The problems are far beyond the Center being a paper tiger or a rudderless ship.
    — Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 7 July 2024
  • The failure to hit a single target might persuade Tehran’s adversaries that the regime is a paper tiger.
    — Suzanne Maloney, Foreign Affairs, 18 Apr. 2024
  • That means the Fed, long a paper tiger, will have to keep pushing rates higher until the cost of living finally backs down.
    — Jason Zweig, WSJ, 13 May 2022
  • Intermediate scrutiny, it should be noted, is not a paper tiger.
    — Ian Millhiser, Vox, 27 June 2025
  • That acclaim transformed the practice from a paper tiger into a darling of institutional clients.
    — Mark Lamster, Dallas News, 25 Feb. 2020
  • That sends an important message to Moscow, who have for years discounted the US as a paper tiger.
    — Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, 15 Apr. 2018
  • Ousting the two paper tigers at the top of Scottish football might actually reignite a bit of outside interest in their league.
    — Andy Naylor, New York Times, 15 June 2025
  • Today, Russia looks like a paper tiger, albeit a brutally destructive one.
    — Frida Ghitis, CNN, 19 May 2022
  • It will be cited in climate change cases around the world, but may ultimately end up being a paper tiger - looking strong but having no real power.
    — Jon McGowan, Forbes.com, 28 Aug. 2025
  • These left-wing TV buffoons are just paper tigers staging a new version of their favorite hoax — a petulant insurrection.
    — Armond White, National Review, 29 Mar. 2024
  • Biden’s rivals are counting on the front-runner turning out to be a paper tiger, one whose aura of inevitability can be punctured with a loss in the opening primaries.
    — Philip Elliott, Time, 20 Sep. 2019
  • But at some point, talk without action threatens to recast the drive for judicial reform as a paper tiger, which might in turn embolden the right’s grand reactionary design.
    — Simon Lazarus, The New Republic, 6 May 2021
  • But because ambition is so overwhelming — because self-interest is so powerful — these paper tigers were allowed to prey on women year after year.
    — David French, National Review, 8 Oct. 2017
  • The Druze exception proves the rule—when repression crosses Israeli red lines, the paper tiger externally tears.
    — Güney Yıldız, Forbes.com, 7 Jan. 2026
  • Washington would be unwise to test the theory that China is a paper tiger that would back down in the face of concerted American action.
    — Ryan Hass, Foreign Affairs, 9 July 2024
  • The Child/Grogu’s adorableness, and the show’s arch-villain to this point, Moff Gideon, was revealed to be a paper tiger in the season-two finale.
    — Isaac Schorr, National Review, 26 Dec. 2020
  • When Southern school districts ignored Brown and refused to integrate, the Court was in danger of being exposed as a paper tiger.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2024
  • Iran will appear a paper tiger; its non-state partners defeated or deflated; its nuclear program in shambles; its military a shadow of its former self.
    — Hussein Agha, Foreign Affairs, 23 June 2025
  • One of the most conspicuous paper tigers in American foreign policy is the Leahy Law, experts say.
    — Brett Murphy, ProPublica, 15 Jan. 2025
  • While this action may convince some that China is a paper tiger, for others, especially Iran’s Arab rivals, it is seen as a sign of prudence.
    — Wesley Alexander Hill, Forbes.com, 1 July 2025
  • Perhaps worst of all from Putin's standpoint, Russia's military has been revealed to be something of a paper tiger, scarier in theory than in practice.
    — Joel Mathis, The Week, 21 Mar. 2022
  • The war also exposed Russia’s military as a paper tiger and led to unspeakable suffering in Ukraine and growing repression at home.
    — Frida Ghitis, CNN, 6 Jan. 2023
  • In the region, the United States will have proved itself a paper tiger, forcing the Gulf and other Arab states to accommodate Iran.
    — Robert Kagan, The Atlantic, 10 May 2026
  • The executive order is seen by some as toothless and, ultimately, a paper tiger in the fight to protect consumers from a new, largely unregulated industry.
    — Nick Coltrain, Denver Post, 21 Dec. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'paper tiger.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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