Library / English Dictionary

STUMBLE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

An unintentional but embarrassing blunder

Example:

confusion caused his unfortunate misstep

Synonyms:

misstep; stumble; trip; trip-up

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("stumble" is a kind of...):

bloomer; blooper; blunder; boner; boo-boo; botch; bungle; flub; foul-up; fuckup; pratfall (an embarrassing mistake)

Derivation:

stumble (make an error)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An unsteady uneven gait

Synonyms:

lurch; stagger; stumble

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("stumble" is a kind of...):

gait (a person's manner of walking)

Derivation:

stumble (walk unsteadily)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make an error

Example:

She slipped up and revealed the name

Synonyms:

slip up; stumble; trip up

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "stumble" is one way to...):

err; mistake; slip (to make a mistake or be incorrect)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

stumble (an unintentional but embarrassing blunder)

stumbler (someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Miss a step and fall or nearly fall

Example:

She stumbled over the tree root

Synonyms:

stumble; trip

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "stumble" is one way to...):

move (move so as to change position, perform a nontranslational motion)

"Stumble" entails doing...:

walk (use one's feet to advance; advance by steps)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "stumble"):

founder (stumble and nearly fall)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue stumble

Derivation:

stumbler (a walker or runner who trips and almost falls)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Walk unsteadily

Example:

The drunk man stumbled about

Synonyms:

bumble; falter; stumble

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "stumble" is one way to...):

walk (use one's feet to advance; advance by steps)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

stumble (an unsteady uneven gait)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Encounter by chance

Example:

I stumbled across a long-lost cousin last night in a restaurant

Synonyms:

hit; stumble

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "stumble" is one way to...):

come by; come into (obtain, especially accidentally)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Credits

 Context examples: 

Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

So absorbed was he in his thoughts, I remember, that he stumbled over the watering-pot, upset its contents, and deluged both our feet and the garden path.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass- grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Blindfolding them made walking extremely difficult, causing them to stagger and stumble from side to side while assistants prevented them from falling.

(“Sixth sense” may be more than just a feeling, NIH)

Hal guided at the gee-pole, and Charles stumbled along in the rear.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Moreover, the mutant mice were dramatically better at standing up after diazepam-induced stumbles, in fact, some appeared resistant to stumbling.

(‘Sticky’ gene may help Valium calm nerves, National Institutes of Health)

All night they led their horses, stumbling and groping through wild defiles and rugged valleys, following the guidance of a frightened peasant who was strapped by the wrist to Black Simon's stirrup-leather.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now and again I stumbled, and it was then that Silver plucked so roughly at the rope and launched at me his murderous glances.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Citizen scientists scanning images from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, an orbiting infra-red observatory, recently stumbled upon a new class of curiosities that had gone largely unrecognized before: yellow balls.

(Citizen Scientists Discover Yellow "Space Balls", NASA)

The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper, and it was with extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)