jumble
Americanverb (used with object)
-
jumbles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
jumbled,
past participle, past
-
jumbling
present participle
-
to mix in a confused mass; put or throw together without order.
You've jumbled up all the cards.
- Antonyms:
- separate
-
to confuse mentally; muddle.
verb (used without object)
-
jumbles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
jumbled,
past participle, past
-
jumbling
present participle
-
to be mixed together in a disorderly heap or mass.
-
to meet or come together confusedly.
noun
-
jumbles
plural
-
a mixed or disordered heap or mass.
a jumble of paper clips, rubber bands, and string.
-
a confused mixture; medley.
-
a state of confusion or disorder.
- Synonyms:
- chaos, muddle, mess, gallimaufry, farrago, hodgepodge
- Antonyms:
- order
-
Also jumbal a small, round, flat cake or cookie with a hole in the middle.
verb
-
to mingle (objects, papers, etc) in a state of disorder
-
(tr; usually passive) to remember in a confused form; muddle
noun
-
a disordered mass, state, etc
-
articles donated for a jumble sale
-
Also called: jumbal. a small thin cake, usually ring-shaped
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
jumblesimple
-
jumblessimple
-
have jumbledperfect
-
has jumbledperfect
-
am jumblingprogressive
-
are jumblingprogressive
-
is jumblingprogressive
-
have been jumblingperfect progressive
-
has been jumblingperfect progressive
Past
-
jumbledsimple
-
had jumbledperfect
-
was jumblingprogressive
-
were jumblingprogressive
-
had been jumblingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of jumble
1520–30; perhaps blend of joll to bump (now dial.) and tumble
Explanation
When you jumble something, you throw a bunch of items haphazardly together. For example, many people jumble many random things in a kitchen junk drawer. Use the verb jumble to describe what happens when you scramble or mix things up. Some kids, for example, jumble their Lego toys together in a big bin, while others like to sort the pieces by color or size. You can call the mix of items itself a jumble too. In the early 1500s, jumble meant "to move confusedly," and it was probably modeled on stumble. Later that century, it came to mean "mix or confuse."
Vocabulary lists containing jumble
Workshop 4, Part 2
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"The Death of the Hired Man" by Robert Frost
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Locomotion
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Another function is to translate a jumble of oral commands into a clear and concise text message.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
“Our home was a crazy jumble of pieces from different places we’d lived in before, all commingling, but not very happily; I called it the Island of Misfit Furniture.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
"I just think fast fashion, we don't need it. We were all brought up in jumble sale clothes and it doesn't matter if they get dirty that way either."
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
It seems that we store these memories as a jumble of sensory fragments and music somehow snaps the pieces together.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
A jumble of firn, new ice, and old ice underfoot.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
The claim is that over time there is an increasing ratio of winners to jumbles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
The heist piece is straightforward, but at times the fallout distractingly jumbles the puzzle.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2025
Saving and paying for college is an endurance test, a forced march on an often 50-year parade, where strange numerical codes and senseless jumbles of letters mark a route that Waze can’t map.
From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2024
Elsewhere, household detritus was littered among ruined deck chairs and jumbles of mangled trees outside wrecked homes.
From Reuters ● Oct. 28, 2023
Tied up along its shores was every conceivable kind of watercraft— Chinese junks, tugboats, rickety houseboats, old schooners, and barges heaped with jumbles of industrial cargo.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
"It could definitely catch fire again if the pattern isn't changed. As long as organic waste remains piled up in a jumbled mess, methane gas will continue to be produced underground."
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
While the disparate elements that go into a given arrangement might appear jumbled on paper, one always senses the logic behind each piece.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
If you happened to miss Sunday’s jumbled mess of a Golden Globes ceremony, the telecast can be best summed up by a scene from one of the night’s most nominated films.
From Salon ● Jan. 13, 2026
There are cheap tickers jumbled with antiques that must have survived the house fire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2025
“I just...I don’t like to read out loud. The words get jumbled in my head or my mouth or something.”
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
Fifty years ago, famed physicist Stephen Hawking wrote down an equation that predicts that a black hole has entropy, an attribute typically associated with the disordered jumbling of atoms and molecules in material.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 28, 2024
And for the coach tasked with jumbling his lineups to accommodate Leonard the reserve – while also juggling a minutes restriction for backup guard Wall, as well -- it presented more headaches than benefits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2022
He could sound halting, sometimes jumbling words, using the wrong one, and occasionally sounding off-key.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2022
Consider it like summer cleaning before most of the jumbling for the 2021-22 season happens after the Seattle expansion draft next week.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 13, 2021
He shook his head, like jumbling his thoughts would make them fall clearer, let him see that he was mistaken.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
