(v. i.) To feel or grope about; to make awkward attempts to do or find something.
(v. i.) To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly; as, to fumble for an excuse.
(v. i.) To handle much; to play childishly; to turn over and over.
(v. t.) To handle or manage awkwardly; to crowd or tumble together.
Example Sentences:
(1) Jesús Navas played a one-two with Touré down the right and from his awkward cross the England squad goalkeeper fumbled the ball inside his six-yard area from where Fernando scored with an overhead kick as dextrous as it was surprising.
(2) And it's very nearly a huge play to open the game, as return man Kyle Williams fumbles the ball as he gets hit ... but manages to recover it himself.
(3) Suddenly the game seemed to be slipping away from the Ravens, matters going from bad to worse as Ray Rice fumbled at the Baltimore 24.
(4) As City fumble their hold on the Premier League trophy, United's grip tightens.
(5) January 7, 2014 SEC Football (@SECfootball) That fumble was a very Heisman-like fumble.
(6) Lofts it into the box and Barthez fumbles, gathers, then releases Henry.
(7) Instagram in particular came to gain from Flickr’s fumble.
(8) When Kerry arrived in Paris, he rushed to warmly embrace the French president, but when Hollande went to give Kerry a typical French greeting ( une bise ), Kerry fumbled – and for a moment it looked like the two men were about to start french kissing for real.
(9) They go back to James a play later and he's in trouble, but spins into space before dropping the ball - FUMBLE!
(10) Another hostage, Joel Herat, screamed “He’s chasing us!” as Morton-Hoffman fumbled to open the main door.
(11) It began with a turnover, as Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson fumbled away possession on the very first play, and effectively ended with one too, Smith’s interception killing San Francisco’s final comeback attempt with just 22 seconds left to play.
(12) 49ers 20-10 Panthers, 8:53, 3rd quarter Kaepernick fumbles on the next drive!
(13) They had started with a short field after Terrelle Thomas intercepted Terrelle Pryor, taking the ball back on a helter-skelter return which ended with the defender fumbling the ball at the Oakland five-yard line, only for officials to rule that he had been down by contact.
(14) US oil spill inquiry chief slams BP 11 November Ex-BP boss says when oil spill hit, BP was forced to make up disaster response as it went along Tony Hayward: Public saw us as 'fumbling and incompetent' 12 November Greenland wants upfront payment to cover major oil spills in wake of BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster Greenland wants $2bn bond from oil firms keen to drill in its Arctic waters 24 November Ken Feinberg expects to pay out only $2.3bn in emergency claims over Gulf of Mexico oil spill from $20bn fund Half of BP oil spill damages claims 'inadequate', says payout chief 25 November Tar balls discovered in shrimping net seven months after BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill Section of Gulf of Mexico closed to shrimpers after tar balls found 15 December The US government files a suit against BP and several of its partners in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
(15) Having just praised the Saints for their cautious gameplan, it backfires spectacularly – Mark Ingram fumbling on a carry up the middle.
(16) It was as much as I could do to stop myself giggling as the bemused caller lost his thread and started fumbling for words.
(17) It would be fair to say that, over time, we fumbled into the cluster,” he adds.
(18) I guess you could make that link superficially, because I'm dark as well, and we're roughly the same age, and when she's fumbling around I can see why people might go there.
(19) Labour may promote more women, but more than one cabinet minister needed his women staff protected from slobbery kisses and aggressive fumblings.
(20) All payouts for specific performances in a game, including interceptions or causing fumbles, are against NFL rules.
Stumble
Definition:
(v. i.) 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.
(v. i.) To walk in an unsteady or clumsy manner.
(v. i.) To fall into a crime or an error; to err.
(v. i.) To strike or happen (upon a person or thing) without design; to fall or light by chance; -- with on, upon, or against.
(v. t.) To cause to stumble or trip.
(v. t.) Fig.: To mislead; to confound; to perplex; to cause to err or to fall.
(n.) A trip in walking or running.
(n.) A blunder; a failure; a fall from rectitude.
Example Sentences:
(1) Former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morell, also weighed in for Clinton in a New York Times opinion piece on Friday, declaring: “Donald J Trump is not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.” Republicans stumbling from the wreckage of a terrible week are worrying about how to contain the damage further down the ballot paper in November as people running for seats in Congress and at state level risk being swept away.
(2) On Saturday I made my second trip to the campsite in Lower Stumble – my first journey was on 28 July.
(3) 11.10pm BST Apart from the stumbles in the sales pitch, it's still not clear how the Abbott government will secure most of its budget.
(4) CBS, which says it stumbled across its advance copy in a bookstore, happens to own the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster.
(5) However, the main stumbling block is the increasingly chronic shortage of many different types of medical staff – nurses, GPs, paramedics, radiologists, A&E doctors and many others – that the NHS is facing.
(6) The surprise move came after Tuesday's much-noticed stumble, when the US supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, jumbled the words, prompting Obama to follow suit.
(7) Myners – a non-executive director of Co-op group – was also scathing in his assessment of the board members after asking them a simple retail question and likening their inability to answer to that of Paul Flowers, former chairman of the Co-op bank, who had stumbled over basic questions posed by the Treasury select committee last year.
(8) Unfortunately, a lack of knowledge regarding the field among the general public and within the medical community as well functions as a major stumbling block to the growth of our profession.
(9) He may not be the greatest orator, sometimes stressing the wrong word in a sentence or stumbling over his Autocue, and he may not deliver media-managed soundbites with the ease that the PM does, but he is good with the public.
(10) Polls opened at 4am across the country, which suffered decades of army-led dictatorship followed by a stumbling reform process.
(11) Just a stepover here, a Cruyff turn there, and his opponent would be destroyed ... Only in real life, Boruc stumbled and bumbled and Olivier Giroud pounced to score.
(12) In the most uncomfortable and revelatory moments, Cameron stumbled as he was asked whether he saw Brooks every weekend in 2008 and 2009, before his wife Samantha told him in the lunchtime break that they had met every six weeks, or a bit more.
(13) He was like the man with staring eyes who stumbled up and down Oxford Street with a placard declaring the end of the world to be nigh.
(14) So intense was the pre‑match excitement in Dortmund over the return of the prodigal Jürg – much of it media-led – that walking around this flat, functional city on the afternoon of the game you half expected to stumble across Klopp shrines, New Orleans-style Klopp jazz funerals, to look up and find his great beaming visage looming over the city like some vast alien saucer.
(15) It is essential, therefore, that a legal agreement is agreed at the COP21 talks in order to create a process after Paris through which countries will review their efforts and find ways to ramp up their actions on reducing emissions.” A major stumbling block facing negotiators at Paris will be finance.
(16) Poyet will feel infinitely worse should Sunderland stumble once again at Spurs.
(17) There are pages where, unexpectedly, amid the horror, a reader feels he has stumbled on a near-inconsequential diary entry.
(18) She stumbled to her door, but found she could not walk out; she had to crawl as the ground swayed beneath her.
(19) Diane Abbott will continue to be a key figurehead in Labour’s general election campaign, the party has indicated, despite a stumbling radio performance in which she struggled to explain how a pledge to hire 10,000 extra police officers would be funded.
(20) But in that case, it will inevitably be harder to re-establish confidence in the intelligence on which the White House is basing its decisions, and the world's sole superpower risks stumbling onwards half-blind, unable to distinguish real threats from phantoms.