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:
Because the ICC has no army or police force, it can prosecute leaders only if they fall from power or badly blunder.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
He reportedly disliked the constant and later referred to it as his "biggest blunder."
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
They rolled the dice with Nancy and made a dreadful blunder.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 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
They heard him blunder against the trunk which rocked violently.
From "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
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
“Ford…has in his social endeavor committed economic blunders, if not crimes,” The Wall Street Journal opined on Jan. 7, 1914.
From Barron's ● May 20, 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
Will they have the baserunning blunders, the bullpen breakdowns, the terrible at-bats?
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 22, 2026
I had heard of the foolish blunders that small-town boys made when they went to big cities and I wanted to be very cautious.
From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright
She blundered on the Epstein files by boasting about big revelations that never materialized.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 2, 2026
Martinez might have escaped justice, but he blundered.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2025
"It should have been drawn, but Ding blundered as the pressure grew."
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
Blackberry was about to reply when another rabbit came noisily through the thick dog’s mercury in the wood, blundered down into the brambles and pushed his way up from the ditch.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
He thanked his team and family before blundering into acknowledging the prime minister in the Royal Box.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
At the 1994 tournament in Linares, Spain, Mr. Kasparov—as the camera later showed—made a blundering move, let go of the piece, changed his mind and moved it back.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026
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
Steve Carell, the screen actor best known for his breakout role as a blundering boss in the NBC comedy “The Office,” will make his Broadway debut in a revival of the Chekhov classic “Uncle Vanya.”
From New York Times ● Nov. 14, 2023
But I was pathetic, a blundering liability to my own team, always in the way of an opportune pass or unwittingly blocking an open lane.
From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
