stumble

STUMBLE, verb intransitive [This word is probably from a root that signifies to stop or to strike, and may be allied to stammer.] 1. To trip in walking or moving in any way upon the legs; to strike the foot so as to fall, or to endanger a fall; applied to any animal. A man may stumble as well as a horse. The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble Proverbs 4:12. 2. To err; to slide into a crime or an error. He that loveth his brother, abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. 1 John 2:1. 3. To strike upon without design; to fall on; to light on by chance. Men often stumble upon valuable discoveries. Ovid stumbled by some inadvertence upon Livia in a bath. STUMBLE, verb transitive 1. To obstruct in progress; to cause to trip or stop. 2. To confound; to puzzle; to put to a nonplus; to perplex. One thing more stumbles me in the very foundation of this hypothesis. STUMBLE, noun 1. A trip in walking or running. 2. A blunder; a failure. One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.