STUMBLE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • 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

... temple to his chin. The blood spurted out. The wounded man saluted, and requested the officer to permit him to drop out to have his wound dressed. But the officer curtly refused, and so the unfortunate soldier was compelled to walk, or rather to stumble, beside me, the blood pouring from his ...

— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... the Company, and of the bank, and the extinction of all confidence by the sad discovery that there was no longer any money wherewith to pay the bank notes, they being so prodigiously in excess of the coin. After this, each step had been but a stumble: each operation a very feeble palliation. Days and weeks had been gained, obscurity had been allowed to give more chance, solely from fear of disclosing the true and terrible state of affairs, and the extent of the public ruin. Law could not wash his hands of all this before the world; he ...

— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... talk for ever about this dreadful snow, it won't melt the sooner for it: how do you like this passage that I am going to play to you? It is from a charming Nocturne, by Chopin, and is so difficult that I shall have to play it over fifty times, or else I shall always stumble at this place, and I never shall know the Nocturne to play to any one. Don't you think it is beautiful?—so spiritual and original! I can tell you it will be something to boast of, when I have accomplished ...

— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... are impressed by the fact of the irresistible advance of the Social Democracy. So it is that friendship for labor becomes popular among the cultured classes, until there is scarcely a parlor in which one does not stumble over one ...

— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... bachelor who is no stickler for full-blown loveliness. I may find a man who has become inoculated with western heresies and believes that a woman with intellect is desirable, even though under weight. I may find a fool, or an aristocrat who has gambled. I may stumble upon good fortune if I put her out among the young men. Yes, I must exhibit ...

— The Slim Princess • George Ade

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