How to Use sour grapes in a Sentence

sour grapes

plural noun
  • Talk about turning sour grapes into good wine.
    — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Nov. 2025
  • That’s sour grapes, and all people care about is the score, to be honest with you.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 10 Aug. 2021
  • That’s certainly true for me, and my saying that is not sour grapes.
    — al, 26 Oct. 2021
  • This sounds like sour grapes from a fan who is upset that the Lakers are out this year.
    — Los Angeles Times, 25 May 2024
  • Paxton has not been charged and has sought to cast the accusations as sour grapes.
    — Gregory Krieg, CNN, 25 Feb. 2022
  • To be sure, Blatter’s remarks carry a strong note of sour grapes.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 14 Nov. 2022
  • Townsend refused to assign intent to Ostapenko and chalked it up to sour grapes.
    — Merlisa Lawrence Corbett, Forbes.com, 31 Aug. 2025
  • Without an admission of faults of one’s own, an outburst reads as sour grapes.
    — Anna Holmes, The Atlantic, 16 Dec. 2025
  • So is current criticism of Trump the result of sour grapes over the past?
    — Paul Gattis | [email protected], al, 12 Nov. 2022
  • Risch suggested that some of these complaints might amount to Democrat sour grapes.
    — Nicole Gaouette and Laura Koran, CNN, 30 Sep. 2017
  • So this could all be sour grapes or an effort to gain a competitive edge, but the courts will have to decide that.
    — Will McCurdy, PCMAG, 1 Dec. 2024
  • Mecole Hardman providing the juice, albeit squeezed from sour grapes.
    — Bob Raissman, New York Daily News, 2 Mar. 2024
  • Tellingly, no conspicuous voice has been raised to accuse him of sour grapes or being a bad sport.
    — Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2017
  • Save yourself the sour grapes by avoiding the most overrated tourist attractions.
    — Taylor Bell, USA TODAY, 19 July 2019
  • Meanwhile, snowboarders around the state, and perhaps even the country, were eating sour grapes.
    — Julie Jag, The Salt Lake Tribune, 1 Sep. 2023
  • Seems like the California county may be dealing with a little bit more than just some sour grapes.
    — Tori Latham, Robb Report, 20 Mar. 2024
  • These were people protesting their rights being taken away, not people protesting over a sour grapes lost election.
    — Chicago Tribune, 30 July 2022
  • Trump took to Twitter to dismiss the stories as Democratic sour grapes.
    — Daniel Politi, Slate Magazine, 15 Feb. 2017
  • Sullivan said Susskind’s criticism of TV was pure sour grapes.
    — Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2025
  • But to dismiss the concerns as no more than sour grapes underestimates the real problem.
    — Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 21 May 2021
  • But hopefully sour grapes will be the extent of Russia’s reactions.
    — Bryan Walsh, Vox, 26 July 2024
  • And listen, the government has a select few people who have some type of sour grapes about things that went on, really in their own lives, frankly.
    — Chloe Melas, NBC News, 13 Nov. 2024
  • Kasich insists that his opposition to the president is not driven by sour grapes.
    — Peter Baker New York Times, Star Tribune, 17 Aug. 2020
  • His arguments surely will play well in Champaign, but will come off as sour grapes nationally.
    — Shannon Ryan, chicagotribune.com, 10 Mar. 2021
  • But, at the end of the day, the recall just seems like sour grapes from a union weaponizing the recall process in a retaliatory manner.
    — The Editorial Board, Orange County Register, 23 Apr. 2024
  • The success gap between them prompted some to see Ebeling’s Instagram post as sour grapes.
    — E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2025
  • The success gap between them prompted some to see Ebeling’s Instagram post as sour grapes.
    — E. Alex Jung, Vulture, 13 Nov. 2025
  • But Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni and others say the move to bar the shove has the whiff of sour grapes.
    — Victor Mather, New York Times, 26 Feb. 2025
  • All the clamoring about sourcing and so forth on social media, which could seem like petty sour grapes, was really about something much bigger.
    — Amy Wilentz, The New Republic, 25 May 2022
  • Tesson, being French and conversant with La Fontaine, regards this as an instance of sour grapes.
    — Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 5 July 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sour grapes.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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