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Verb: stumble  stúm-bul
  1. Walk unsteadily, tripping repeatedly
    "The drunk man stumbled about";
    - falter, bumble
     
  2. Miss a step and fall or nearly fall
    "She stumbled over the tree root";
    - trip
     
  3. Encounter by chance
    "I stumbled across a long-lost cousin last night in a restaurant";
    - hit
     
  4. Make an error
    "She stumbled and revealed the name";
    - slip up [informal], trip up
Noun: stumble  stúm-bul
  1. An unsteady uneven gait
    - lurch, stagger
     
  2. An unintentional but embarrassing blunder
    "he recited the whole poem without a single stumble";
    - trip, trip-up, misstep

Derived forms: stumbling, stumbles, stumbled

Type of: bloomer [informal], blooper [N. Amer, informal], blue [Austral, NZ, informal], blunder, boner [N. Amer, informal], boob [Brit, informal], boo-boo [informal], botch, bungle, come by, come into, err, flub [N. Amer, informal], foul-up, gait, goof [informal], mistake, move, pratfall [informal], slip, walk

Encyclopedia: Stumble