BLUNDER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Blunder

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/blˈəndər/ Listen

noun

Blunder n.

1.

Confusion; disturbance. (Obs.)

2.

A gross error or mistake, resulting from carelessness, stupidity, or culpable ignorance.

Synonyms: Blunder, Error, Mistake, Bull. An error is a departure or deviation from that which is right or correct; as, an error of the press; an error of judgment. A mistake is the interchange or taking of one thing for another, through haste, inadvertence, etc.; as, a careless mistake. A blunder is a mistake or error of a gross kind. It supposes a person to flounder on in his course, from carelessness, ignorance, or stupidity. A bull is a verbal blunder containing a laughable incongruity of ideas.

verb

Blunder v. t.

1.

To cause to blunder. (Obs.) "To blunder an adversary."

2.

To do or treat in a blundering manner; to confuse. "He blunders and confounds all these together."

Blunder v. i. (past & past part. blundered; pres. part. blundering)

1.

To make a gross error or mistake; as, to blunder in writing or preparing a medical prescription.

2.

To move in an awkward, clumsy manner; to flounder and stumble. "I was never distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my bow." "Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place, And blunders on, and staggers every pace."

To blunder on.

(a)

To continue blundering.

(b)

To find or reach as if by an accident involving more or less stupidity, applied to something desirable; as, to blunder on a useful discovery.

See images of 'Blunder'

Etymology of 'Blunder'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Blunder" Quotes from Famous Books

... miles, as from its elevated position the lamp is 190 feet above the sea. From this point to Limasol the beach is low and sandy, and has always been accepted as the most favourable point for a disembarkation of troops. With historical facts before us there is small excuse for the blunder committed in landing our army of occupation, during the extreme heat of July, at Larnaca instead of Limasol. At the former port there is not a tree to throw a shade, and the miserable aspect of the surrounding country must have had a most depressing effect upon the ...

— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... them amongst the grass. We arrived at the spot I sought, and there encamped. Our provisions were nearly out; the sun having reduced the men's sugar, and melted the bacon, which had been boiled before we set out. This was an unfortunate blunder. Bacon, in such warm weather, should be carried uncooked, and our's might have then been very good. The men jocosely remarked, that, although we had out-manoeuvred the natives, the weather had been so hot ...

— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... Jedediah Cleishbotham," or nothing! It was in vain that he remonstrated. Janet was firm, and hunting up Maude's letter, written more than three years before, she bade him write down the name, so as not to make a blunder. But this he refused to do. "He guessed he could remember that horrid name; there was not another like it in Christendom," he said, and on the Sunday morning of which we write he took his baby in ...

— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... bad enough before, letting everybody else aboard know that all he has to do is push you over. But it was an awful blunder to let him know it, the ...

— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... 25th of October; the citadel held out until the 9th of December; the king heaped rewards on Marshal Bouffers: at the march out from Lille, Prince Eugene had ordered all his army to pay him the same honors as to himself. Ghent and Bruges were abandoned to the imperialists. "We had made blunder upon blunder in this campaign," says Marshal Berwick, in his Memoires, "and, in spite of all that if somebody had not made the last in giving up Ghent and Bruges, there would have been a fine game the year after." The Low Countries ...

— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com