fumble
pronunciation
How to pronounce fumble in British English:
UK [ˈfʌmbl]
How to pronounce fumble in American English:
US [ˈfʌmbəl]
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- Noun:
- (sports) dropping the ball
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- Verb:
- feel about uncertainly or blindly
- make one's way clumsily or blindly
- handle clumsily
- make a mess of, destroy or ruin
- drop or juggle or fail to play cleanly a grounder
Word Origin
- fumble (v.)
- mid-15c., "handle clumsily," possibly from Old Norse falma "to fumble, grope." Similar words in Scandinavian and North Sea Germanic (Swedish fumla; Dutch fommelen) suggest onomatopoeia from a sound felt to indicate clumsiness (compare bumble, stumble, and obsolete English famble, fimble of roughly the same meaning). Intransitive sense "do or seek awkwardly" is from 1530s. Sense in football is from 1889. Related: Fumbled; fumbling.
- fumble (n.)
- 1640s, from fumble (v.).
Example
- 1. Sometimes you have to fumble in order to have a new , enjoyable experience .
- 2. You wake up at dawn and fumble on the bedstand for your ( google ) glass .
- 3. A quick fumble is often less erotic , and certainly not as indicative of desire .
- 4. Governments would fumble in the dark , investors would waste money and electorates would struggle to hold their political leaders to account .
- 5. Ari melber , a seattle native who writes for the nation , was forced to fumble for change at a starbucks on the lower east side - and the new price tag also struck him as puzzling .