語
A
ñ
字
Second Language
Word file #002RisingEveryday English

What does paper tiger mean?

纸老虎zhǐ lǎohǔ

Say itpay-per TY-ger/ˌpeɪ.pɚ ˈtaɪ.ɡɚ/noun (also used before a noun)

Character by character
  1. 纸zhǐpaper
  2. 老lǎoword prefix (not “old” here)
  3. 虎hǔtiger

A person, group, country, or law that looks powerful or dangerous but is actually weak and cannot stand up to a challenge.

Written by the Second Language TeamWritten

A paper tiger is a person, group, country, or law that looks strong or dangerous but is really weak. Push on it and it folds, like a tiger made of paper. You will meet it mostly in news and politics. A government agency that cannot fine anyone, an army that fails its first real test, and a new law with no way to enforce it can all be called paper tigers. The phrase is a translation of the Chinese word 纸老虎. Many readers know it from Mao Zedong, who said in 1946 that “all reactionaries are paper tigers” [3].

English speakers say pay-per TY-ger, with the main stress on “tiger.” The Mandarin word is 纸老虎 zhǐ lǎohǔ (traditional 紙老虎) [2]. 纸 zhǐ means “paper,” and 老虎 lǎohǔ means “tiger.” On its own, 老 lǎo usually means “old,” but here it is only a common first part of the word for tiger. All three syllables have the third tone on paper. In speech, 老 changes to a rising tone, and in quick speech 纸 often does too, so the word can sound close to “zhí láo hǔ.” In English, paper tiger is a standard phrase, not slang. It is fine in conversation and in newspapers, but it is always a criticism.

Word stats

Known in English
Regular news readers have seen it in headlines about weak laws and armies. Fewer people know it came from Chinese.
Said in China today
Chinese speakers say 纸老虎 often, and not only about politics. A bluffing coworker or a hissing cat counts too.
Polite
Not a rude word, but it says the target is all show. Calling someone’s country a paper tiger can offend them.
Freshness
It has been in English for almost two hundred years, and searches still go up every year. The tiger is aging well.

Spotted in the wild

Gaming chat · Friday, 11:40 pm
  1. Mayathat dragon has THREE health bars?? i’m not going in there
  2. Youit looks huge but it barely hits. total paper tiger
  3. Leocan confirm, beat it with the starter sword

What it means here: The dragon looks scary but is easy to beat, so it is a paper tiger.

Comments under a news article
  1. Priyaa ban on spam calls with no fines? that law is a paper tiger
  2. Tomgive it time. the article says fines start next year
  3. Priyai’ll believe it when my phone stops ringing

What it means here: Priya means the law sounds strong but has no power behind it, because nobody can be punished.

Family chat · Sunday afternoon
  1. Momgrandpa’s new cat hissed at me again
  2. Youshe hissed at the vacuum yesterday and then hid under the bed for an hour
  3. Mom纸老虎 😂
  4. Youa paper tiger who is actually a cat

What it means here: Mom writes 纸老虎 (zhǐ lǎohǔ, “paper tiger”) for a cat that acts fierce but is really scared, a normal everyday use in Chinese.

How to use it

  • something is (just) a paper tigerWithout a budget, the new safety agency is just a paper tiger.
  • turn out to be a paper tigerThe team everyone feared turned out to be a paper tiger in the playoffs.
  • expose something as a paper tigerThe first real test exposed the rules as a paper tiger.
  • no paper tigerThis regulator is no paper tiger: it fined three banks last year.
  • a paper-tiger law / army (before a noun)Critics called it a paper-tiger law with nothing to back it up.

Don’t say it like this

  • Sounds offHe’s a paper tiger, so be careful around him.

    Say thisHe’s a paper tiger, so don’t worry about him.

    A paper tiger only looks dangerous. The phrase means the threat is not real.

  • Sounds offThis cheap phone case is a paper tiger.

    Say thisThis cheap phone case is flimsy.

    A paper tiger has to look strong or threatening first. Something that is simply weak is not one.

  • Sounds offMao invented the phrase paper tiger.

    Say thisMao made the phrase paper tiger famous.

    The phrase was in English by 1836, more than a hundred years before Mao’s 1946 interview.

  • Sounds off纸老虎 literally means “paper old tiger.”

    Say this纸老虎 literally means “paper tiger.”

    In 老虎, 老 is just part of the word for tiger. It does not mean the tiger is old.

paper tiger or not?

Is each of these paper tiger? Pick an answer to find out.

  1. A city bans littering, but in ten years nobody has ever been fined.

  2. A small, quiet dog that nobody notices bites the mail carrier.

  3. A huge, loud security guard runs away at the first sign of trouble.

  4. A tiny ant carries something fifty times its own weight.

The paper tiger family

  • 纸虎 zhǐhǔ“Paper tiger”: an older, shorter Chinese form, found in the novel Water Margin.Same tiger, one character lighter.
  • 外强中干 wài qiáng zhōng gānA Chinese idiom: “strong outside, empty inside.”The paper tiger’s description, without the tiger.
  • all bark and no biteAn English phrase for someone who makes threats but never acts on them.English uses a dog for this job. Chinese sends a tiger.

Where it came from

  1. 1828Robert Morrison’s Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect, printed in Macau, lists “Che low foo, 纸老虎: A paper tiger, a false pretext to frighten people.” The researcher Huang Heqing found the entry [2].
  2. 1836The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest English example comes from the writing of John Francis Davis, a British scholar of China who later governed Hong Kong. The OED says the English phrase was modelled on the Chinese word [1].
  3. 1946On August 6, Mao Zedong tells the American journalist Anna Louise Strong that “all reactionaries are paper tigers.” He says they look frightening but have no real strength, and he names Chiang Kai-shek and the American reactionaries backing him as paper tigers too [3].
  4. TodayEnglish uses the phrase mostly in news about weak laws, armies, and governments. In Chinese, 纸老虎 is an everyday word for anyone who bluffs.

Paper tiger in English vs. 纸老虎 in Chinese

The core meaning is the same in both languages. Chinese dictionaries define 纸老虎 as a person or group that looks strong and fierce but is really empty and powerless. The difference is in who gets the label.

PointEnglish paper tigerChinese 纸老虎
Main meaningLooks powerful or threatening, is really weakLooks strong and fierce, is really empty and powerless
Usual targetsCountries, governments, armies, laws, institutionsAnyone who bluffs: a bully, a loud coworker, even a hissing cat
Where you meet itNews and political commentaryEveryday speech, as well as politics
What it calls to mindA weak law or a weak armyFor many people, also Mao’s slogan

So a Chinese speaker might say that two thugs “look vicious but are really paper tigers.” In English, calling a person a paper tiger is possible, but it sounds more natural about a power or an institution.

Mao did not invent the phrase, though many people think he did. An 1828 glossary of Cantonese already translated 纸老虎 as “a paper tiger” [2], and the Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest English example is from 1836 [1]. The Ming-dynasty novel Water Margin uses a shorter Chinese form, 纸虎 zhǐhǔ. Even so, one Chinese dictionary of new words treats 纸老虎 as a new word of the Mao era and credits his 1946 talk as its first use. A Chinese article argues against this, pointing to the older examples [2].

What Mao did was make the phrase famous around the world. In his 1946 talk with the American journalist Anna Louise Strong, he said reactionaries look frightening but have no real strength [3]. Some English dictionaries date the phrase to the 20th century, but those dates show when Mao made it popular, not when it first appeared.

Sources

  1. paper tiger, n. meanings, etymology and moreOxford English Dictionary
  2. 也谈“纸老虎”的来历 (崔山佳)华语桥 / 语文建设通讯
  3. 【党史百年·天天读】8月6日共产党员网 (12371.cn), 3 August 2021

More words to decode

Articles