Meaning & use
life gives you lemons
Last updated
Meaning
phrasefixed phrase
Used to say that life brings difficulties, usually as the first half of a saying about making the best of them.
Grammar: Often appears as part of the longer saying 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade'; on its own it just states that bad things happen.
Patterns
- when life gives you lemons, make lemonade
- life gives you lemons
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade — that's what my grandmother always said.
He lost his job, but life gives you lemons, so he started his own business.
The saying goes that when life gives you lemons, you should turn them into something sweet.
Common combinations
- when life gives you lemons
- When life gives you lemons, you have to stay positive.
- make lemonade
- Her motto is simple: make lemonade out of whatever comes.
- turn lemons into lemonade
- The team turned lemons into lemonade after the funding fell through.
Synonyms and how they differ
- make the best of a bad situation
- This expresses the same idea as the full saying, but it is a plain phrase rather than a fixed proverb.
Word family
- lemonade noun
- The sweet drink the saying tells you to make from lemons.
Commonly confused: life gives you lemons or lemon?
life gives you lemons vs lemon
A lemon is the sour fruit itself; the proverb uses it as a picture of something unpleasant that life hands you.
Practice
Which sentence uses the saying correctly?
Choose one answer.
The fixed saying pairs the hard times (lemons) with making something good (lemonade). Option 1 breaks the proverb's meaning, and options 2 and 3 misunderstand it entirely.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “life gives you lemons”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.