sour grapes
plural nounDefinition of sour grapes
: disparagement of something that has proven unattainable
his criticisms are just sour grapes
Examples of sour grapes in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
French suspicions of cheating used to seem like sour grapes. — The Economist, "A French cyclist may win the Tour de France," 25 July 2019 Save yourself the sour grapes by avoiding the most overrated tourist attractions. — Taylor Bell, USA TODAY, "Tourist traps: Why you should skip Stonehenge, Times Square and the Leaning Tower of Pisa," 19 July 2019 Republicans have countered that the lawsuit reflected sour grapes after a string of Democratic losses. — Bobby Caina Calvan, sun-sentinel.com, "Democrats complain of Trump ‘ballot bias’ in 2020 election," 16 July 2019 Republicans have countered that the lawsuit reflected sour grapes after a string of Democratic losses. — Washington Post, "Florida Democrats complain of Trump ‘ballot bias’ in 2020," 16 July 2019 But another administration official dismissed the accusations as sour grapes. — Gordon Lubold, WSJ, "Trump Bucked National-Security Aides on Proposed Iran Attack," 23 June 2019 There’s another reason to dismiss Intel’s claims as sour grapes too: The only PCIe 4.0 PCs this year will come covered in AMD stickers. — Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld, "Intel challenges AMD's Ryzen 3000 CPUs to take the Core i9-9900K's real-world gaming crown," 10 June 2019 Over the past decade, the idea that the higher-education bubble is about to burst has been waved away as headline pessimism or conservative sour grapes over the leftward drift of college faculties. — Allen C. Guelzo, WSJ, "America’s Disappearing Private Colleges," 21 Feb. 2019 There is also the small matter of widespread allegations of malfeasance and corruption involved in the bidding process, and some lingering sour grapes that the United States missed out because of it. — Martin Rogers, USA TODAY, "Qatar is the World Cup every fan should attend," 13 July 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sour grapes.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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