WordWeb Online

1. Walk unsteadily
   "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, trip up

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: stumbles, stumbling, stumbled

See also: stumbler

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

Encyclopedia: Stumble