Word.ws English Dictionary

sour grapes

sour grapes noun: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sour, grapes.

Noun

sour grapes pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sour, grapes.
  2. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) Things that somebody pretends to despise because they cannot obtain or have them.
  3. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) A putting down or expression of disdain about something that one desires but cannot have.
    • I think his comments about that new car are just sour grapes because he can't afford it.
    • Despite the egos of individual scientists, the jealousies and the sour grapes, science had worked pretty much the way it was supposed to.2010, Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway, chapter 2, in Merchants of Doubt

sour grapes meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Arabic and Indonesian

sour grapes in Hindi

acid grapes
खट्टे अंगूर khaṭṭe aṅgūr
expression of disdain for something one cannot have
खट्टे अंगूर khaṭṭe aṅgūr

sour grapes in Tamil

அருளோதியம், அலகாபிதம்

sour grapes in Arabic

acid grapes
حِصْرِم ḥiṣrim

sour grapes in Indonesian

expression of disdain for something one cannot have
serigala dengan anggur
More languagesFewer languages
sour grapes in Persian
غوره ġure
sour grapes in Vietnamese
chùm nho còn xanh

Origin of sour grapes

From Aesop's fable The Fox and the Grapes, in which a fox, unable to reach grapes it is seeking, convinces itself that they must have been unripe (therefore, sour) all along and so not worth trying for in the first place.

Questions about sour grapes

What does sour grapes mean?
Sour grapes means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sour, grapes.
What is sour grapes in Hindi?
Sour grapes in Hindi is खट्टे अंगूर (khaṭṭe aṅgūr). See Sour grapes meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is sour grapes?
Sour grapes is a noun.

Words near sour grapes in the dictionary

  1. sour figs
  2. sour gas
  3. sour gases
  4. sour gourd
  5. sour gourds
  6. sour grapes
  7. sour grass
  8. sour grasses
  9. sour gum
  10. sour gums
  11. sour honey

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sour grapes (page history and authors); sour grapes (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-sour grapes.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-sour grapes.wav.

Cite this entry: “sour grapes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sour_grapes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.