Link Centre Dictionary

fumble

UK/ˈfʌmbəl/ US/ˈfʊmbəl/ uncommon obsolete slang uk
verb (5) noun (1)

verb

1.

feel about uncertainly or blindly

  • “She groped for her glasses in the darkness of the bedroom”
Synonyms
2.

make one''s way clumsily or blindly

  • “He fumbled towards the door”
Synonyms
3.
4.

make a mess of, destroy or ruin

  • “I botched the dinner and we had to eat out”
  • “the pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement”
Synonyms
5.

drop or juggle or fail to play cleanly a grounder

  • “fumble a grounder”

noun

1.

(sports) dropping the ball

Synonyms

Origin

From late Middle English, from Low German fummeln, fommeln, fammeln (German fummeln), or Dutch fommelen. Or, perhaps from a Scandinavian/North Germanic source; compare related Old Norse fálma, Icelandic fálma, Danish fumle, especially Swedish fumla, famla, with variants: fumbla (“fumble”), fambla (“famble”), related to Swedish fim, fem (Danish fim, Norwegian fim, feima), with a root meaning of “cover, coating of foam or figuratively ditto”, cognate to German Feim (“surf”) and English foam. Possibly has (a more or less unconscious) connection to fathom (via Old Norse faðmr, Swedish famn) in the sense of “embrace”. The ultimate origin for either could perhaps be imitative of fumbling. Or, from Proto-Indo-European *pal- (“to shake, swing”), see also Latin palpo (“to pat, touch softly”), and possibly Proto-West Germanic *fōlijan (“to feel”).

Phrases

  • fumble the bag

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

See also

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.