blunder

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“
Dissimulation is more than a blunder, for in friendship a blunder is a crime Raoul To game no more, to come home tipsy no more, to shun the menagerie of the opera, to become serious, to study, to desire a position in life, this you call dissimulation Vautrin You are as yet but a poor diplomatist.

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Definitions (22)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A usually serious mistake typically caused by ignorance or confusion.
  2. intransitive verb To move clumsily or blindly.
  3. intransitive verb To make a usually serious mistake.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • Matthew Clifford I have altered to Martin, as you prescribed; the blunder was my own, as well as a more considerable one, that of Lord Sandwich's death—which was occasioned by my supposing, at first, that the translation of Barba was made by the second Earl, whose death I had marked in the list, and forgot to alter, after I had writ the account of the father. —  Letters of Horace Walpole, v1
  • With many expressions of regret for the blunder, the police then allowed him to depart. —  The Romance of a Pro-Consul
  • I would describe what Grose did as a blunder, as a misstep, and as a mistake. —  Think Progress
  • Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said the blunder was an extraordinary and alarming lapse. —  Home | Mail Online
  • Newspaper blames Google for airline blunder - The Tribune has blamed a problem in Google's crawling technology for the blunder which saw an old story about United Airlines 'bankruptcy surfaced as breaking news. —  Megite Technology News: What's Happening Right Now
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

Used in the same contextWord Family

blunder:   blunders ·  blundered
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Middle English blunderen, to go blindly, perhaps from Old Swedish blundra, have one's eyes closed, from Old Norse blunda.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English blondren, blunderen, a freq. form of uncertain origin, perhaps of double origin: (1) properly blondren, freq. of blonden, blanden, mix (see bland, v.); (2) properly blundren, freq. of blunden, which occurs once in the doubtful sense of ‘stagger, stumble,’ from Icelandic blunda, doze, = Swedish blunda = Danish blunde, doze, slumber; cf. Icelandic blundhr = Swedish Danish blund, a doze, nap. Cf. blunt.
  2. from Middle English blunder, blonder, error, misfortune, from blunderen, blondren, blunder, v.
 

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/ˈbləndər/
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