tumble

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To perform acrobatic feats such as somersaults, rolls, or twists.
2. v. To fall or roll end over end: The kittens tumbled over each other.
3. v. To spill or roll out in confusion or disorder: Students tumbled out of the bus.
4. v. To pitch headlong; fall: tumbled on the ice.
5. v. To proceed haphazardly.
6. v. To topple, as from power or a high position; fall.
7. v. To collapse: The wall tumbled down.
8. v. To drop: Prices tumbled.
9. v. To come upon accidentally; happen on: We tumbled on a fine restaurant.
10. v. Slang To come to a sudden understanding; catch on: tumbled to the reality that he had been cheated.
11. v. To cause to fall; bring down: A scandal tumbled the government.
12. v. To put, spill, or toss haphazardly: tumbled the extra parts into a box.
13. v. To toss or whirl in a drum, tumbler, or tumbling box.
14. n. An act of tumbling; a fall.
15. n. Confusion; disorder.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To roll about by turning one way and another; toss; pitch about; wallow: as, he tumbles and tosses from pain; the tumbling sea.
2. To lose footing or support and fall to the ground; come down suddenly and violently; be precipitated; as, to tumble from a scaffold.
3. To move or go in a rough, careless, or headlong manner.
4. To play mountebank tricks by various springs, balancings, posturings, and contortions of the body.
5. To dance.
6. To fall rapidly, as prices: as, fancy stocks have tumbled.
7. To turn in; go to bed.
8. Nautical to come up hastily and in a scrambling way through the hatchway on a ship's deck, as a sailor or a number of sailors together: as, the starboard watch tumbled up.
9. To turn over; toss about as for examination or search; revolve in one's mind: usually with over.
10. To disorder; rumple: as, to tumble bedclothes.
11. To throw by chance or with violence; fling; pitch.
12. To bring down; overturn or overthrow; cast to the ground; fling headlong.
13. To polish by revolution in a tumbling-box.
14. n. A fall; a rolling or turning over; a somersault.
15. n. A state of entanglement or confusion.
16. n. Same as tumbling-box.

Wiktionary

1. n. A fall
2. v. intransitive To fall end over end.
3. v. To perform gymnastics such as somersaults, rolls, and handsprings.
4. v. To roll over and over.
5. v. informal To have sexual intercourse.
6. v. transitive To smooth and polish a rough surface on relatively small parts.
7. v. To muss, to make disorderly to tousle.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To roll over, or to and fro; to throw one's self about.
2. v. To roll down; to fall suddenly and violently; to be precipitated.
3. v. To play tricks by various movements and contortions of the body; to perform the feats of an acrobat.
4. v. To turn over; to turn or throw about, as for examination or search; to roll or move in a rough, coarse, or unceremonious manner; to throw down or headlong; to precipitate; -- sometimes with over, about, etc..
5. v. To disturb; to rumple.
6. n. Act of tumbling, or rolling over; a fall.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. suffer a sudden downfall, overthrow, or defeat
2. v. fall suddenly and sharply
3. n. an acrobatic feat of rolling or turning end over end
4. v. cause to topple or tumble by pushing
5. v. understand, usually after some initial difficulty
6. v. throw together in a confused mass
7. v. fall apart
8. v. put clothes in a tumbling barrel, where they are whirled about in hot air, usually with the purpose of drying
9. v. fall down, as if collapsing
10. n. a sudden drop from an upright position
11. v. roll over and over, back and forth
12. v. fly around
13. v. do gymnastics, roll and turn skillfully