• IPA: /ˈstʌmbəl/

stumble (plural stumbles)

1. A fall, trip or substantial misstep.
2. An error or blunder.
3. A clumsy walk.

• (a blunder) blooper, blunder, boo-boo, defect, error, fault, faux pas, fluff, gaffe, lapse, mistake, slip, thinko
• See also Thesaurus:error

• French: chute, faux pas
• German: Stolpern, Fehltritt
• Italian: scivolone
• Portuguese: tropeço
• Russian: спотыка́ние
• Spanish: tropezón, traspié

• French: bourde
• German: Fehler, Schnitzer, Ausrutscher, Patzer
• Russian: про́мах
• Spanish: desliz, torpeza, tropiezo

stumble (stumbles, present participle stumbling; past and past participle stumbled)

1. (intransitive) To trip or fall; to walk clumsily.
   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. [...] In Three Volumes, volume (please specify ), Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], OCLC 230694662 ↗:

   He stumbled over a rock.

2. (intransitive) To make a mistake or have trouble.

   I always stumble over verbs in Spanish.

3. (transitive) To cause to stumble or trip.
4. (transitive, figurative) To mislead; to confound; to cause to err or to fall.
   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Vnlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], OCLC 879551664 ↗:

     False and dazzling fires to stumble men.

   • a. 1705, John Locke, “An Examination of P[ère] Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God”, in Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke: […], London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], published 1706, OCLC 6963663 ↗:

     One thing more stumbles me in the very foundation of this hypothesis.

5. To strike or happen (upon a person or thing) without design; to fall or light by chance; with on, upon, or against.

   • He [Ovid] had stumbled, by some inadvertency, upon Livia in a bath.

   • 1754, Christopher Smart, Snake

     Forth as she waddled in the brake, / A grey goose stumbled on a snake.

• French: trébucher
• German: stolpern
• Italian: scivolare
• Portuguese: tropeçar
• Russian: спотыка́ться
• Spanish: tropezar

• German: staksen
• Italian: incespicare
• Spanish: caminar torpemente

• Portuguese: tropeçar
• Russian: ошиба́ться
• Spanish: tropezar, errar