blunder
Americannoun
-
blunders
plural
verb (used without object)
-
blunders,
present (3rd person singular)
-
blundered,
past participle, past
-
blundering
present participle
-
to move or act blindly, stupidly, or without direction or steady guidance.
Without my glasses I blundered into the wrong room.
-
to make a gross or stupid mistake, especially through carelessness or mental confusion.
Just pray that he doesn't blunder again and get the names wrong.
verb (used with object)
-
blunders,
present (3rd person singular)
-
blundered,
past participle, past
-
blundering
present participle
-
to bungle; botch.
Several of the accounts were blundered by that new assistant.
-
to utter thoughtlessly; blurt out.
He blundered his surprise at their winning the award.
noun
-
a stupid or clumsy mistake
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a foolish tactless remark
verb
-
to make stupid or clumsy mistakes
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to make foolish tactless remarks
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to act clumsily; stumble
he blundered into a situation he knew nothing about
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(tr) to mismanage; botch
Synonym Usage
See mistake.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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blunderernoun
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blunderingnoun
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superblundernoun
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outblunderverb (used with object)
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nonblunderingadjective
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unblunderingadjective
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blunderinglyadverb
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nonblunderinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
blundersimple
-
blunderssimple
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have blunderedperfect
-
has blunderedperfect
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am blunderingprogressive
-
are blunderingprogressive
-
is blunderingprogressive
-
have been blunderingperfect progressive
-
has been blunderingperfect progressive
Past
-
blunderedsimple
-
had blunderedperfect
-
was blunderingprogressive
-
were blunderingprogressive
-
had been blunderingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of blunder
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English blunderen, blondren (verb), from Old Norse blunda “to shut one's eyes, nap”; compare Norwegian dialect blundra
Explanation
A blunder is an embarrassing mistake. Accidentally called your new boyfriend by your old boyfriend's name? Ouch. That's a blunder you don't want to repeat. Has an embarrassing mistake ever made you feel like you’re stumbling around with your eyes closed? If so, it won’t surprise you to learn that blunder comes from the Old Norse word blundra, meaning to “shut one's eyes.” It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that blunder came to refer to a stupid or embarrassing mistake, or as a verb, to describe making such a mistake, as in “I tend to blunder when I'm nervous.”
Vocabulary lists containing blunder
"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "B"
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English Words Derived from Old Norse
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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:
He would later tell friends that introducing it had been his "greatest blunder."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 18, 2026
A press conference took place a few days later, where MacDougall and colleague Cdr Greg Burns were grilled over the blunder.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026
“Let me cry about this loss a little bit more,” Leonard said about his future with the Clippers after that blunder.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
This one came in the form of a shocking Wembanyama blunder.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 6, 2026
Worried about making a critical blunder, I sat down to marshal my energy before descending further.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
In so holding, Justice Horace Gray committed three major blunders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
AI-generated blunders do not necessarily destroy a lawyer's case, French lawyer Damien Charlotin told AFP.
From Barron's ● Jun. 15, 2026
A horrific crime turned into a national scandal as France realised the scale of official blunders that had left Barella at liberty.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026
It was one of the German chancellor’s worst strategic blunders.
From Salon ● May 21, 2026
I now know that many blunders have been committed here, by young and old alike.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
They assumed it sensed danger, but it was actually steering them: They blundered into a goose nest, scattering the frightened adults.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
But Ding blundered on move 55 and Gukesh exploited the error to clinch the title.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2024
Further, prosecutors blundered in January 2023 by adding a “gun enhancement” when filing involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2024
Addressing some 100 C.I.A. officials on March 19, Mr. Burns acknowledged how the agency catastrophically blundered in its assessment that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
From New York Times ● May 9, 2023
I blundered through the darkness, crashing through the underbrush.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
When the toys use messaging apps to control their owners in ways that go terrifyingly unnoticed, humankind itself seems to be blundering about with its brain unplugged.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
The Bath wing copped a first unfortunate yellow card for not releasing the tackled man and then a clumsy second, blundering into an airborne Kyle Steyn.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2026
Leafy speaks for all of the author’s blundering characters when, at one low ebb, he sums himself up as “an aristocrat of pain and frustration, a prince of anguish and embarrassment.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 12, 2025
Naive, blundering hobbyists and reckless pranksters can also veer into restricted airspace, setting off alarms and potentially shutting down airport traffic.
From Barron's ● Oct. 14, 2025
“It remained where I had hidden it when I heard the Baron blundering through the forest toward me. Concealed inside a hollow tree.”
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
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.
