blunder
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
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to move or act blindly, stupidly, or without direction or steady guidance.
Without my glasses I blundered into the wrong room.
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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)
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to bungle; botch.
Several of the accounts were blundered by that new assistant.
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to utter thoughtlessly; blurt out.
He blundered his surprise at their winning the award.
noun
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a stupid or clumsy mistake
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a foolish tactless remark
verb
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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
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blundersimple
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blunderssimple
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have blunderedperfect
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has blunderedperfect
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am blunderingprogressive
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are blunderingprogressive
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is blunderingprogressive
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have been blunderingperfect progressive
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has been blunderingperfect progressive
Past
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blunderedsimple
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had blunderedperfect
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was blunderingprogressive
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were blunderingprogressive
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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 reportedly disliked the constant and later referred to it as his "biggest blunder."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
“Iran has definitely taken a hit, but I do think the war was a strategic blunder because it has made Iran stronger in many ways,” said Dina Esfandiary, an Iran expert at Bloomberg Economics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
The blunder was made by Rahmi Koc at the opening of a hospital in the western resort city of Izmir late Friday, but when the footage started circulating online it caused a backlash.
From Barron's ● Jun. 6, 2026
Mike Trout presumably has witnessed every possible blooper, blunder and boo-boo in 16 seasons with the woeful Angels.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
Only when Lhakpa pointed out the blunder did Hutchison return for his boots.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
It used to be far easier to spot computer-generated visual creations - often used by fraudsters - because AI would make blunders, like adding an extra finger or something else that was obviously weird.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
AI-generated blunders do not necessarily destroy a lawyer's case, French lawyer Damien Charlotin told AFP.
From Barron's ● Jun. 15, 2026
It was one of the German chancellor’s worst strategic blunders.
From Salon ● May 21, 2026
From cornflakes to the pacemaker, some of our most beloved—and useful—products were born of blunders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 5, 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
She blundered on the Epstein files by boasting about big revelations that never materialized.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 2, 2026
But Ding blundered on move 55 and Gukesh exploited the error to clinch the title.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 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
Like SVB, First Republic blundered into trouble as the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates almost 14 months ago.
From Washington Post ● May 1, 2023
A fly that had been crawling along Wilbur’s trough had flown up and blundered into the lower part of Charlotte’s web and was tangled in the sticky threads.
From "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
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
“It’s true that by blundering about we stumbled on gold, but the fact remains that we were looking for gold.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 7, 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
"You think that everybody's looking at you blundering your way along and you become very self-conscious. You want to be normal, you want to be a cool 20-odd year-old and you don't feel like that."
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2022
Whereupon a mile and a half of blundering fishermen went berserk, jumping into the stream and charging after the prey with everything except hatchets and hand grenades.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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.
