STUMBLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Stumble

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/stˈəmbəl/ Listen

verb

Stumble v. t.

1.

To cause to stumble or trip.

2.

Fig.: To mislead; to confound; to perplex; to cause to err or to fall. "False and dazzling fires to stumble men." "One thing more stumbles me in the very foundation of this hypothesis."

Stumble v. i. (past & past part. stumbled; pres. part. stumbling)

1.

To trip in walking or in moving in any way with the legs; to strike the foot so as to fall, or to endanger a fall; to stagger because of a false step. "There stumble steeds strong and down go all." "The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know at what they stumble."

2.

To walk in an unsteady or clumsy manner. "He stumbled up the dark avenue."

3.

To fall into a crime or an error; to err. "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion og stumbling in him."

4.

To strike or happen (upon a person or thing) without design; to fall or light by chance; with on, upon, or against. "Ovid stumbled, by some inadvertency, upon Livia in a bath." "Forth as she waddled in the brake, A gray goose stumbled on a snake."

noun

Stumble n.

1.

A trip in walking or running.

2.

A blunder; a failure; a fall from rectitude. "One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life."

See images of 'Stumble'

Etymology of 'Stumble'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stumble" Quotes from Famous Books

... steadily after my potations, and, having duly taken leave of Byrrhaena, guided my zigzag steps upon the homeward way. But at the very first corner we turned, a sudden gust of wind blew out the solitary torch on which we depended, and left us, plunged in the unforeseen blackness of night, to stumble wearily and painfully to our abode, bruising our feet on every stone ...

— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... should be found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged, and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose, there is a numerous class of critics, who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms, as they call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of criticism which the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject, if he wishes to be pleased with ...

— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... duty. What he did, he did for you. His courage was your courage; his kindness was your kindness. He was striving every minute to be worthy of you. I know of what I'm talking, for I did the same for Terry. Late at night one would stumble down greasy dug-out stairs, coming in from a patrol, to find him lost in thought and gazing at you. Or one would find him covering page after page of letters which he never sent. When he was dying, alone and far out in No Man's Land, he must have drawn out your portrait from next his heart. ...

— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... instant after some unlucky stumble Has floored him and induced a howl of pain, He's clean forgotten all about his tumble And violently sets ...

— Bib Ballads • Ring W. Lardner

... and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted ...

— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

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