leave a sour taste in one's mouth

present singular third person leaves a sour taste in one's mouth · participle present leaving a sour taste in one's mouth · participle past left a sour taste in one's mouth · past left a sour taste in one's mouth

1. idiomaticTo give one an unpleasant feeling or memory.

   “Your daughter has amnesia, sir,” he said, the honourific^([sic]) leaving a sour taste in his mouth.

   2012, Angela Nicole, I Heard There'd Be Cake, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 105

   2 more examples

   But after having been employed for her "entire adult life," her experience of being uninsured leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

   2007 July, Hilary Beard, “Surviving the Health Insurance Crisis”, in Ebony, page 140

   Some volunteers might opt to stay on in Zambia by other means, but the General election had left a sour taste in my mouth and I was ready to go.

   2011, Mark Burke, Glimmers of Hope: Memoir of a Volunteer in Africa, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 307