grapevine
pronunciation
How to pronounce grapevine in British English:
UK [ˈgreɪpvaɪn]
How to pronounce grapevine in American English:
US [ˈɡrepˌvaɪn]
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- Noun:
- gossip spread by spoken communication
- any of numerous woody vines of genus Vitis bearing clusters of edible berries
Word Origin
- grapevine (n.)
- also grape-vine, 1736, from grape + vine. Meaning "a rumor; a secret or unconventional method of spreading information" (1863) is from the use of grapevine telegraph as "secret source of information and rumor" in the American Civil War; in reference to Southerners under northern occupation but also in reference to black communities and runaway slaves. The false reports touching rebel movements, which incessantly circulated in Nashville, brings us to the consideration of the "grapevine telegraph"--a peculiar institution of rebel generation, devised for the duplex purpose of "firing the Southern heart," and to annoy the "Yankees." It is worthy of attention, as one of the signs of the times, expressing the spirit of lying which war engenders. But it is no more than just to say that there is often so little difference between the "grapevine" and the associated press telegraph, that they might as well be identical. ["Rosecrans' Campaign with the Fourteenth Corps," Cincinnati, 1863]
Example
- 1. They 'll hear it through the grapevine .
- 2. The grapevine is 80 % accurate
- 3. Autumn leaf wreath display : buy a grapevine or straw wreath .
- 4. Other studies have come up with a similar figure , suggesting that while details are inevitably lost along the way , the grapevine is mostly accurate .
- 5. Through the migrant grapevine , they know that jobs are drying up several months before government statisticians notice .