sour grapes
9
6.1
- idiom
- Informal
:
uvas agrias
- His criticism of her success was nothing more than sour grapes because he had failed to achieve similar results.
- just sour grapes
- sounds like sour grapes
- call that sour grapes
Cognitive dissonance, as Aesop and the sour grapes have taught us, is a universal phenomenon.
- Cognitive dissonance, as Aesop and the sour grapes have taught us, is a universal phenomenon.
- And it also would have come across as sour grapes.
Examples
-
Many of us dismissed his claims back then as fantasies, excuses, or sour grapes.
Blog text (12) -
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
-
I know this will sound like so many sour grapes,
Fiction book (1994) -
Sour grapes, if you ask me.
-
In this case, the guy is manufacturing his own negative PR over sour grapes.
Blog text (2) -
Quite correct, this is all about sour grapes from the Republicans, especially McCain, who grows smaller by the minute.
Blog text (9) -
Do I detect a few sour grapes there because you don't happen to have any real estate he's interested in buying?
-
Although such complaints might at first appear to be a simple case of sour grapes, they hinted at deeper anxieties and frustrations.
Academic text (2018) -
While many may dismiss such proclamations as sour grapes, reflection confirms more truth than hyperbole.
Blog text (29) -
After missing out on the promotion, she dismissed his comments as just sour grapes.
Synonyms
1
7.5
A way of showing you do not value someone's ideas or feelings
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The idiomatic meaning 'criticism of something one cannot have' is not a straightforward combination of 'sour' (tasting or resentful) and 'grape' (the fruit); it derives from a cultural/fable-based metaphor (Aesop) and is therefore not predictable from the parts. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words but has not encountered the idiom would not reliably infer this figurative sense, so it is opaque.
Etymology
Sour grapes comes from an old Aesop fable: a fox tries to reach some grapes but fails, so he tells himself the grapes are sour. That's why today sour grapes means 'saying something is bad because you want it but can't have it'.