FUMBLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Fumble

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/fˈəmbəl/ Listen

verb

Fumble v. t. To handle or manage awkwardly; to crowd or tumble together.

Fumble v. i. (past & past part. fumbled; pres. part. fumbling)

To feel or grope about; to make awkward attempts to do or find something. "Adams now began to fumble in his pockets."

To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly; as, to fumble for an excuse. "My understanding flutters and my memory fumbles." "Alas! how he fumbles about the domains."

To handle much; to play childishly; to turn over and over. "I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers."

See images of 'Fumble'

Etymology of 'Fumble'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Fumble" Quotes from Famous Books

... from town are on the prowl, Swift fly the steeds along the even green, Bored by the bloody spur, and quickly seen The champion full in front, and as he goes He wins by half a head, or half a nose; Then betting fair ones fumble for their purse, Eager the trifling wager to disburse. Alas! they've nothing hanging by their side, Save but the string by which the bag was tied, For through the silken dress a gash is seen, Where the ...

— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... a heavy, glittering bunch of keys, one of the chief insignia of his dominion, and began to fumble at it. ...

— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points, seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of kings, drew all the kingdoms after it—the fall of force, the defeat ...

— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... his throat and shuffled his feet uneasily, but this hint for haste was utterly wasted upon Old Jerry. The latter failed completely to note the strained intensity of the face that was upturned before him and went on grumbling as he leaned over to fumble in the box beneath the seat. And the tirade continued in an unbroken, half-muffled stream until he straightened laboriously again, the boy's usual weekly packet of papers and catalogues ...

— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... Senator Dan Fowler fights a one-man battle against the clique that seeks perpetual power and perpetual youth, in this hard-hitting novel by Alan E. Nourse. Why did it have to be his personal fight? The others fumble it—they'd foul it up, Fowler protested? But why was he in the fight and what was to happen to Senator Fowler's fight against this fantastic conspiracy? Who ...

— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

More quotes...