STUMBLE

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. Chaucer. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know at what they stumble. Prov. iv. 19.

To walk in an unsteady or clumsy manner. He stumbled up the dark avenue. Sir W. Scott.

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. 1 John ii. 10.

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. Dryden. Forth as she waddled in the brake, A gray goose stumbled on a snake. C. Smart.

To cause to stumble or trip.

Fig.: To mislead; to confound; to perplex; to cause to err or to fall. False and dazzling fires to stumble men. Milton. One thing more stumbles me in the very foundation of this hypothesis. Locke.

A trip in walking or running.

A blunder; a failure; a fall from rectitude. One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life. L'Estrange.