sour grapes

American  

plural noun

1. pretended disdain for something one does not or cannot have.

   She said that she and her husband didn't want to join the club anyway, but it was clearly sour grapes.

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sour grapes British  

noun

1. (functioning as singular) the attitude of affecting to despise something because one cannot or does not have it oneself

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sour grapes Idioms  

1. Disparaging what one cannot obtain, as in The losers' scorn for the award is pure sour grapes. This expression alludes to the Greek writer Aesop's famous fable about a fox that cannot reach some grapes on a high vine and announces that they are sour. In English the fable was first recorded in William Caxton's 1484 translation, “The fox said these raisins be sour.”

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Etymology

Origin of sour grapes

First recorded in 1750–60; in allusion to Aesop's fable concerning the fox who, in an effort to save face, dismissed as sour those grapes he could not reach

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sour grapes

"Absolutely terrible. Shocking. That is not sour grapes."

From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026

Index fund fans counter that claims of distortion are mostly sour grapes from fund managers struggling to outperform.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

Platner himself resigned with sour grapes, insisting he’s being unfairly treated and implying he’s the victim of a conspiracy.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026

Was it sour grapes, then, when Jamie Dimon called out private-credit firms over the recent spate of bankruptcies hitting banks?

From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2025

“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon my soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from her?—I told you I should be disagreeable.”

From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens