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blunder

(blŭn'dər) pronunciation

A usually serious mistake typically caused by ignorance or confusion.

v., -dered, -der·ing, -ders.

v.intr.

To move clumsily or blindly.
To make a usually serious mistake.

v.tr.

To make a stupid, usually serious error in; botch.
To utter (something) stupidly or thoughtlessly.

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

blunderer blun'der·er n.
blunderingly blun'der·ing·ly adv.

SYNONYMS blunder, bumble, flounder, lumber, lurch, stumble. These verbs mean to move awkwardly or unsteadily: blundered about the dark room; flies bumbling against the screen; floundered up the muddy trail; a wagon lumbering along an unpaved road; twisted her ankle and lurched home; stumbled but regained his balance.

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Thesaurus: blunder

noun

Informal

Slang

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verb

To move awkwardly or clumsily: bumble, stumble. See ability/inability, move/halt.
To proceed or perform in an unsteady, faltering manner: bumble, bungle, flounder, fudge, fumble, limp, muddle, shuffle, stagger, stumble. See thrive/fail/exist.
To harm irreparably through inept handling; make a mess: ball up, boggle, botch, bungle, foul up, fumble, gum up, mess up, mishandle, mismanage, muddle, muff, spoil. Informal bollix up, muck up. Slang blow, goof up, louse up, screw up, snafu. Idioms: make a muck of. See correct/incorrect, help/harm/harmless.

Antonyms: blunder

Definition: mistake
Antonyms: accuracy, achievement, correction, fix, restitution, success

v

Definition: make mistake
Antonyms: correct, fix, restore

Word Tutor: blunder

IN BRIEF: A serious mistake, or to make a mistake. To walk or move in a clumsy way. To talk thoughtlessly.

As I blunder blindly through the woods running from the bees I disturbed, I make a serious blunder, and fall in a hole.

Wikipedia: blunder

A blunder is a spectacularly bad decision or action, a mistake or error with detrimental consequences to the party that makes it. It is typically attributable to faulty perception: the result of not reading signs, or misinterpreting available information. Naturally many sensible decisions, which even in retrospect were carefully taken, may also prove disastrous mistakes.

The term blunder is often used to refer to military, diplomatic, political, social or business decisions. The word comes from the Old Norse blundra "shut one's eyes" in the oldest sense in Middle English, "to stumble around blindly" all from a presumed an Indo-European base *bhlendh- that also gave us "blind." This modern sense is dated from 1711.

Examples of actions famously considered to be blunders include: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Maginot Line, and The Tea Act of 1773 (and related British policy decisions toward the American Colonies). However, there is often considerable debate as to whether a decision leading to failure is truly a "blunder" or merely a reasonable course of action based on the available knowledge at the time. Hindsight usually allows one to see the situation far more clearly.

A less consequential blunder is a faux pas, or a blooper.

Science

In science, plain mistakes are in a sense unavoidable. Some blunders may turn out to have positive consequences. Einstein called his introduction of the so-called cosmological constant the "biggest blunder" of his life, and later abandoned the idea. His comment was because he introduced it to maintain a static universe, not long before the observational evidence turned in favour of expansion. Nowadays this constant is needed, to explain the increasing rate of the expanding universe.

Games

In chess, a blunder is a very bad move, often given the '?' or even '??' sign (see punctuation (chess)). But what counts as a blunder also depends on the player, since a lesser move for a club player may be called a blunder if a Grandmaster plays it. See also: Blunder (chess).

In Go, there is a slightly more nuanced Japanese language term poka, meaning an unworthy slip by a top-level player. Fujisawa Hideyuki, in terms of pure talent one of the greatest go players, was famous for poka.

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Antonyms. © 1999-2008 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more
		Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Blunder". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

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