Idiom
hear through the grapevine
Meaning
To hear rumors; to learn through hearsay.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“I heard through the grapevine that she's quitting.”
“No one told me directly; I just heard through the grapevine that the office is moving.”
“Though the company had issued no official statement, investors had already heard through the grapevine that the merger was collapsing.”
Examples
simple
“I heard through the grapevine that she's quitting.”
contextual
“No one told me directly; I just heard through the grapevine that the office is moving.”
complex
“Though the company had issued no official statement, investors had already heard through the grapevine that the merger was collapsing.”
Origin
The term originates from the Grapevine, a telegraph line established in 1859 running between Placerville, California, and Virginia City, Nevada. The wire was strung loosely from trees rather than poles, causing the line to sag and curl in a manner reminiscent of the vines of California grapes. By 1861, this improvised infrastructure was replaced by the Pacific Telegraph, which utilised standard poles and offered a more reliable connection.
During the American Civil War, the "grapevine telegraph" became a proverbial shorthand for unreliable or informal communication. In areas isolated by the conflict, where official lines were frequently cut or non-existent, information travelled through these tangled, unofficial networks. The phrase persists as a reference to the transmission of rumours, the accuracy of which remains as precarious as the original wiring.
Key words
Related idioms
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