stumble

Formsstumbles, stumbling, stumbled

Pluralstumbles

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To trip or briefly lose your balance while walking, or to move with an unsteady, clumsy gait.

   Tired hikers often stumble on the loose gravel near the summit.

   He stumbled in the dark, groping for the light switch.

   Similartrip, stagger, lurch, totter, slip

   Note

   The verb usually comes with a path attached. People stumble over a rock, up a dark avenue (Walter Scott), along through pines (Joseph C. Lincoln) or to the front door. Take care with on. Stumbling on loose gravel is losing your footing, but stumbling on a snake is finding something by chance, and the object tells you which is meant.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To come upon a person or thing by chance, without planning or design.

   She stumbled across an old letter while cleaning out the attic.

   Researchers occasionally stumble upon important findings entirely by accident.

   Similarhappen, chance, come

   Note

   The chance-encounter sense depends on its preposition: on, upon or against. Christopher Smart's grey goose, waddling in the brake, "stumbled on a snake." Dryden (1680) imagines Ovid having stumbled "by some inadvertency, upon the privacies of Livia." A phrase can sit between verb and preposition, but the accident stays at the heart of the meaning.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To make a mistake or run into difficulty while doing or saying something.

   The speaker stumbled over the candidate's name during the introduction.

   Even experienced negotiators stumble when the stakes get this high.

   Similarblunder

   Note

   Trouble with words is where the old kinship with stammer shows most clearly, a root traced at the tripping noun. You stumble over verbs or a name much as you might stammer. The King James Bible of 1611 extends the verb to the mind: drunkards "stumble in iudgement." Over marks the obstacle, and in marks the faculty that fails.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A fall, trip, or serious misstep made while moving.

   A single stumble cost the runner her lead in the final lap.

   The dancer recovered gracefully from an early stumble.

   Similartrip, slip, misstep, fall, stagger

   Note

   The word began in the feet and the mouth at once. It goes back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning both "to trip up" and "to stammer," so stammer is its doublet and German stumm, "mute," is a cousin. The noun names the misstep itself, and its cause is usually given separately: in Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897), a loose floorboard stepped on unawares.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An error or blunder in someone's words or actions.

   A minor stumble in the testimony cast doubt on her whole account.

   The campaign never recovered from that early stumble.

   Similarblunder, mistake, error, slip, misstep

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To cause a person or animal to trip or lose their footing.

   The uneven cobblestones stumbled more than one tired traveler.

   A sudden gust can stumble even a sure-footed climber.

   Similartrip, unbalance, topple, upend

   Oppositesteady, balance

   Note

   The causative turns the walker into the object: whatever trips you stumbles you. Jacqueline Druga's Sleepers (2017) pairs it with a direction, saying the shock "stumbled me back a few steps." That pattern, an object plus where they ended up, shows how the transitive verb sits most comfortably.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   An awkward, unsteady manner of walking.

   The injured horse moved across the yard with a painful stumble.

   His drunken stumble drew worried looks from the crowd.

   Similarstagger, lurch, hobble, totter, shamble

8. 8
   verbfigurativelytransitive

   To mislead or confuse someone, or to cause them to fall into error or wrongdoing.

   Temptation stumbled many who believed themselves beyond its reach.

   Deceptive arguments can stumble the unwary reader into false belief.

   Similarmislead, confuse, deceive, corrupt, lure

   Note

   Here the obstacle is in the mind rather than on the path. Milton's Areopagitica (1644) warns of "false and dazzling fires to stumble men," meaning fires that lead them astray. Locke, writing before 1705, says one thing "stumbles me" in a hypothesis, meaning it puzzles him. The first is deception and the second is perplexity, so when the verb appears in older prose, check which one is meant.

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