Meaning of paper trail | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A written record, history, or collection of evidence.
   idiomatic
2. Records left by a person or organization in the course of activities.
   idiomatic
3. Physical evidence of something that occurred in the past.
   broadly

Equivalents

Examples

“Keep a good paper trail in case anyone asks you why you arrived at that conclusion.”

“The only paper trail is the cashed money order, and unless it was cashed at a place where they actually know the payee (like the bank), the money order could have been stolen and cashed by someone else.”

“With a good paperwork system in place, including a working paper trail, it becomes much easier to manage the flow of relevant information regarding your plants and orders.”

“And unless that paper trail exonerated you from guilt—or,if not that, supported some alternative explanation that granted you plausible deniability—then sooner or later you'd find yourself on the ass end of a federal indictment.”

“Beginning in the late 20th century, researchers were able to analyze the mtDNA and Y chromosomes of multiple races around the world, revealing a DNA paper trail that led back to eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago.”

“Even if you delete posts or your digital paper trail, the data stills ^([sic]) exists and can be retrieved later in life.”

CEFR level