Emily Dickinson Lexicon

STUM'BLE, v.i. [Ice. stumra. This word is probably from a root that signifies to stop or to strike, and may be allied to stammer.]

1. To trip in walking or moving in any way upon the legs; to strike the foot so as to fall, or to endanger a fall; applied to any animal. A man may stumble, as well as a horse. The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble. – Prov. iv.
2. To err; to slide into a crime or an error. He that loveth his brother, abideth in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. – 1 John ii.
3. To strike upon without design; to fall on; to light on by chance. Men often stumble upon valuable discoveries. Ovid stumbled by some inadvertence upon Livia in a bath. – Dryden.