Bible Dictionary
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.