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Fine Dictionary

blunder

ˈbləndər
WordNet
  1. (v) blunder
    utter impulsively "He blurted out the secret","He blundered his stupid ideas"
  2. (v) blunder
    make one's way clumsily or blindly "He fumbled towards the door"
  3. (v) blunder
    commit a faux pas or a fault or make a serious mistake "I blundered during the job interview"
  4. (n) blunder
    an embarrassing mistake
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  1. Blunder
    A gross error or mistake, resulting from carelessness, stupidity, or culpable ignorance.
  2. Blunder
    Confusion; disturbance.
  3. Blunder
    To cause to blunder. "To blunder an adversary."
  4. Blunder
    To do or treat in a blundering manner; to confuse. "He blunders and confounds all these together."
  5. Blunder
    To make a gross error or mistake; as, to blunder in writing or preparing a medical prescription.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  1. blunder
    To move or act blindly, stupidly, or without direction or steady guidance; flounder; stumble: frequently with on or along.
  2. blunder
    To make a gross mistake, especially through mental confusion; err widely or stupidly.
  3. blunder
    To mix (things) confusedly; confuse.
  4. blunder
    To confound; confuse; distract; cause to make blunders: as, “to blunder an adversary,”
  5. blunder
    To injure or destroy by blundering; mismanage: as, “to darken or blunder the cause,”
  6. blunder
    To do or make faultily or erroneously; make mistakes in through ignorance or stupidity; bungle.
  7. blunder
    To utter thoughtlessly or in a blundering manner; blurt out: generally with out: as, to blunder out an excuse.
  8. (n) blunder
    A mistake made through precipitance or mental confusion; a gross or stupid mistake.
  9. (n) blunder
    Synonyms Error, Mistake, Blunder, Bull. An error is a wandering from truth, primarily in impression, judgment, or calculation, and, by extension of the idea, in conduct; it may be a state. A mistake is a false judgment or choice; it does not, as error sometimes does, imply moral obliquity, the defect being placed wholly in the wisdom of the actor, and in its treatment of this defect the word is altogether gentle. Blunder is a strong word for a mistake which is stupid, a gross error in action or speech. A bull is a blunder in language, involving generally a very obvious and comical contradiction; but the word is sometimes applied to any particularly inapt or ludicrously inappropriate remark.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (v.i) Blunder
    blun′der to make a gross mistake, to flounder about: to utter thoughtlessly
  2. (n) Blunder
    a gross mistake
Quotations
Elbert Hubbard
A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience.
Elbert Hubbard
Friedrich Nietzsche
Is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's blunders?
Friedrich Nietzsche
Benjamin Disraeli
Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
Benjamin Disraeli
A clever man commits no minor blunders.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Charles R. Darwin
What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel work of nature!
Charles R. Darwin
Joseph Addison
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
Joseph Addison
Idioms

Himalayan blunder - A Himalayan blunder is a very serious mistake or error.

Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary OE. blunderen, blondren, to stir, confuse, blunder; perh. allied to blend, to mix, to confound by mixture

Usage in the news

Blunders take Dallas out of the game early in Sunday's beatdown. star-telegram.com

Perry says his campaign won't end despite debate blunder. eyi.com

Atletico Rafaela goalkeeper Guillermo Sara was guilty of an horrific blunder as his side were beaten 3-1 by Estudiantes last weekend. nzherald.co.nz

IF you have never coped with gardening on a balcony or rooftop or in a city yard before, thoughtful planning at this time of year will help you avoid some expensive blunders. nytimes.com

Five tips for avoiding a bargaining blunder. ashingtonpost.com

The Schmitt scandal has captivated Hungarians , who have responded with Internet memes that spoof his former "doctor" title and the rhetorical blunders he was known for making. csmonitor.com

Offensive blunders, inconsistency proves costly for Huskies. theolympian.com

Blunders jeopardize Drew Peterson murder prosecution. lubbockonline.com

' Like Crazy ': From Cupid's Blunders, Wonders. online.wsj.com

Of Hawaii's Board and President Make Peace Over 'Wonder Blunder' Incident. chronicle.com

"Great Leap Forward" is Americanized to "Forward" -- a socialist campaign blunders. spectator.org

In the midst of the non-peace talk debacle, we shouldn't lose track of another Obama blunder: his Syria policy. commentarymagazine.com

We are all aware of the human capacity to make verbal or written blunders. herald-mail.com

The $12 trillion misunderstanding : Whose budget blunder. ashingtonpost.com

Republican's insults of troops, other blunders show he's not ready. usnews.com

Usage in scientific papers

But in developing this idea, they blundered, and it was, unfortunately, their botched version of the idea that was taken up and subsequently built into the institutional structure of academia.
Do We Need a Scientific Revolution?

He took an extreme position and renounced to the cosmological constant that he considered being the “biggest blunder” of his life (in contrast, Lemaˆıtre always defended the cosmological constant as one of the most fundamental ingredients of modern cosmology).
Models of universe with a polytropic equation of state: I. The early universe

It was then that Einstein (according to Gamow’s autobiography) called the introduction of the cosmological constant ’the biggest blunder of my life’.
Accelerating Universe: Observational Status and Theoretical Implications

As discussed below, there is better reason than ever before to believe that the cosmological constant may be non-zero, and Einstein may not have blundered after all.
Accelerating Universe: Observational Status and Theoretical Implications

The writer of the present paper finds in very difficult to understand why, to his best knowledge, this obvious blunder has not been pointed out in the century since Ref. was written.
The physics of space and time II: A reassessment of Einstein's 1905 special relativity paper

Usage in literature

Most people have forgotten Petiet, and it is a blunder to remind them of him. "France and the Republic" by William Henry Hurlbert

The blunder of George Chalmers has been repeated in numerous publications throughout Europe and in America. "Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3)" by Isaac D'Israeli

Could the All-Wise make a blunder? "The Brentons" by Anna Chapin Ray

Hillard took a step backward and blundered against a pedestal. "The Lure of the Mask" by Harold MacGrath

He had committed a blunder, and he did not forgive blunders easily, especially in himself. "The Grell Mystery" by Frank Froest

Most of mankind must be content with the modest aim which Dr. Holmes set for the poet, to know enough not to make too many blunders. "The Booklover and His Books" by Harry Lyman Koopman

Sir Francis Drake made a terrible blunder. "Clare Avery" by Emily Sarah Holt

Obviously, a blunder in identity had created this genial smile. "The Hill" by Horace Annesley Vachell

Another egregious blunder which has persisted is the printing of the word "past" for "passed," in the extract below. "The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52" by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

You could blunder along with such a companion to your heart's content. "Ted and the Telephone" by Sara Ware Bassett

Usage in poetry
Let him by night his joys pursue,
And blunder in the dark,
While I by day enjoying you, Can see to hit the mark.
Then, letting metaphysics slip,
It mumbled moral thunder;
Showing how Virtue's self will trip
If Reason chance to blunder.
We next had the social jubilee,
And from my heart I wondered;
If any girl there would talk to me—
A simple, social blunder.
Yet the best is gone. Too late, I'd
Give my soul for it, in truth.
Can it be the blundering, great-eyed,
Sweet stupidity of youth?
The other — God knows why he found
No path so sanctified —
Went blundering on from dawn till dawn,
Till all the world had died.
Then, out of Time and out of Space,
Is built an Hour and a Place
Where all an earnest, baffled Earth
Blunders and trips to make us mirth;