When you have been trickedinto buying something worthless you have been sold a lemon.
When you say thatsomething is a lemon it implies that it is useless because it fails to workproperly.
Examples:
“Promod has a car which is real lemon.““I wouldn’t borrow Madhavan’s VCR. It’s a lemon.““Rajeev bought a radio last month. It’s turned out to be a real lemon”. “Worthless” is the meaning of the word `lemon’ in AmericanEnglish. In British English, it’s people who are referred to as a lemon. Theword is used in informal contexts to mean a silly person”
“. I felt such a lemon when I tripped over the carpet. “
“Many of the students think that the Dean is a bit of a lemon”
. “Usha has no intentions of meeting that lemon Ganpat.
The Hindu – KYE Tuesday, July 10, 2001
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The term “buying a lemon” dates back to the days when foreign fruits first appeared in England, the fruits that included oranges, pineapples, bananas, and tangerines were all both sweet and very expensive, most poor people could not afford to buy them very often and so they were given as birthday and christmas gifts..Unscrupulous people would sell the lemons knowing that by the time it was tasted they would be long gone.