King James Bible Dictionary

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.

STUMBLED, participle passive Obstructed; puzzled.

STUMBLER, noun One that stumbles or makes a blunder.