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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
blunder
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
tactical error/mistake/blunder (=a mistake that will harm your plans later)
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ VERB
commit
▪ Supposing in innocently requesting him to escort her today, she'd unwittingly committed a crass blunder?
▪ After a quiet opening, Speelman committed a simple blunder, losing a piece for two pawns.
make
▪ And to study it you need a programme that ensures you don't make a blunder.
▪ The winner made one bad blunder six fences from home but that could be put down more to frustration than anything else.
▪ Were they all pretending to be ignorant in order to trap him into making some punishable blunder.
▪ He had made the most ancient blunder in the business quite off his own bat.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a series of management blunders
▪ It seems to be another public relations blunder by the government.
▪ Major management blunders have led the company into bankruptcy.
▪ She stopped, finally aware of the terrible blunder she had made.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Field goal follies At least four games this season were decided on field goal blunders.
▪ History was being catalogued here, the missed opportunities, blunders, and outright mistakes.
▪ It is a laborious process, likely to lead to embarrassing blunders if badly done.
▪ One popular blunder that almost every economist denounces is rent control.
▪ Snow was Harold Wilson's biggest ministerial blunder.
▪ The parents face a nightmare week-long wait before blood tests show if there has been a hospital blunder.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
about
▪ Until we do, we shall be blundering about in the dark.
▪ They're blundering about like a ship in the fog, with no terms of reference to steer by.
▪ Forest Goblin shamans are prone to run off dizzily, or just blunder about, unable to distinguish fact from venom-induced fiction.
around
▪ To be raped is one thing, but to blunder around disorientated is another.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He realized he had blundered by picking such an experienced player for the team.
▪ Police admitted that they blundered when they let Wylie go.
▪ The government later admitted it had blundered in its handling of the affair.
▪ They turned a corner and blundered into a group of soldiers.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A moth thudded into the parchment lampshade and blundered round, trying to escape.
▪ He developed the photographs himself, blundering round the bathroom in the pitch dark.
▪ On occasion even the latter have lost their usual reticence and blundered.
▪ On the second night out of Hong Kong we blundered into the middle of a fishing fleet working close inshore.
▪ To be raped is one thing, but to blunder around disorientated is another.
▪ You can see so little as you blunder on that you are an easy target for any animal seeking fresh meat.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Blunder

Blunder \Blun"der\, v. t.

  1. To cause to blunder. [Obs.] ``To blunder an adversary.''
    --Ditton.

  2. To do or treat in a blundering manner; to confuse.

    He blunders and confounds all these together.
    --Stillingfleet.

Blunder

Blunder \Blun"der\, n.

  1. Confusion; disturbance. [Obs.]

  2. A gross error or mistake, resulting from carelessness, stupidity, or culpable ignorance.

    Syn: Blunder, Error, Mistake, Bull.

    Usage: An error is a departure or deviation from that which is right or correct; as, an error of the press; an error of judgment. A mistake is the interchange or taking of one thing for another, through haste, inadvertence, etc.; as, a careless mistake. A blunder is a mistake or error of a gross kind. It supposes a person to flounder on in his course, from carelessness, ignorance, or stupidity. A bull is a verbal blunder containing a laughable incongruity of ideas.

Blunder

Blunder \Blun"der\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Blundered; p. pr. & vb. n. Blundering.] [OE. blunderen, blondren, to stir, confuse, blunder; perh. allied to blend to mix, to confound by mixture.]

  1. To make a gross error or mistake; as, to blunder in writing or preparing a medical prescription.
    --Swift.

  2. To move in an awkward, clumsy manner; to flounder and stumble. I was never distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my bow. --Goldsmith. Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place, And blunders on, and staggers every pace. --Dryden. To blunder on.

    1. To continue blundering.

    2. To find or reach as if by an accident involving more or less stupidity, -- applied to something desirable; as, to blunder on a useful discovery.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
blunder

mid-14c., "to stumble about blindly," from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse blundra "shut one's eyes," from PIE root *bhlendh- (see blind). Meaning "make a stupid mistake" is first recorded 1711. Related: Blundered; blundering.

blunder

mid-14c., apparently from blunder (v.), though of about the same age.

Wiktionary
blunder

n. A clumsy or embarrassing mistake. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To make a clumsy or stupid mistake. 2 (context intransitive English) To move blindly or clumsily. 3 (context transitive English) To cause to make a mistake. 4 (context transitive English) To do or treat in a blundering manner; to confuse.

WordNet
blunder

n. an embarrassing mistake [syn: blooper, bloomer, bungle, foul-up, fuckup, flub, botch, boner, boo-boo]

blunder
  1. v. commit a faux pas or a fault or make a serious mistake; "I blundered during the job interview" [syn: sin, boob, goof]

  2. make one's way clumsily or blindly; "He fumbled towards the door" [syn: fumble]

  3. utter impulsively; "He blurted out the secret"; "He blundered his stupid ideas" [syn: blurt out, blurt, blunder out, ejaculate]

Wikipedia
Blunder

A blunder is a particularly bad mistake. Specific instances include:

  • Blunder (chess), a very poor move in chess
  • Hopetoun Blunder, an event in Australian history
  • Brand blunder, in marketing
  • Draft blunder, in American sports
  • Himalayan Blunder, in Indian history
Blunder (chess)

In chess, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether from time trouble, overconfidence or carelessness. While a blunder may seem like a stroke of luck for the opposing player, some chess players give their opponent plenty of opportunities to blunder.

What qualifies as a "blunder" rather than a normal mistake is somewhat subjective. A weak move from a novice player might be explained by the player's lack of skill, while the same move from a master might be called a blunder. In chess annotation, blunders are typically marked with a double question mark, " ??", after the move.

Especially among amateur and novice players, blunders often occur because of a faulty thought process where they do not consider the opponent's forcing moves. In particular, checks, captures, and threats need to be considered at each move. Neglecting these possibilities leaves a player vulnerable to simple tactical errors.

One technique formerly recommended to avoid blunders was to write down the planned move on the scoresheet, then take one last look before making it. This practice was not uncommon even at the grandmaster level. However, in 2005 the International Chess Federation ( FIDE) banned it, instead requiring that the move be made before being written down. The US Chess Federation also implemented this rule, effective as of January 1, 2007 (a change to rule 15A), although it is not universally enforced.

Blunder (TV series)

Blunder is a Channel 4 comedy sketch series from 2006 that originally aired on E4. One series of six episodes aired.

Usage examples of "blunder".

Creating Pygmalion without establishing a check on his ability to assume power had been a gross blunder.

Then, blundering about and bellowing like a wounded rhino, he staggered out front and shoveled a big sluiceway in the recently patched ditch bank, allowing almost the entire acequia flow to cascade into his already soggy front vega.

He had, in fact, crossed the designs of no less a power than the German Empire, he had blundered into the hot focus of Welt-Politik, he was drifting helplessly towards the great Imperial secret, the immense aeronautic park that had been established at a headlong pace in Franconia to develop silently, swiftly, and on an immense scale the great discoveries of Hunstedt and Stossel, and so to give Germany before all other nations a fleet of airships, the air power and the Empire of the world.

Something along those lines would just be a perpetuation of the blunder that opened the door to Argan in the first place.

I saw the gigantic forms of my two great auks, followed by their chicks, blundering past in a shower of spray, driving headlong out into the ocean.

So Vetch had to blunder through on his own, with common sense, what he learned from Baken, and what he overheard from the trainers.

The Biter men were greatly expert at his game, and frisked about like rats where he could only blunder in the dark.

He guessed he was a few paces north of Morris, but Hakeswill did not want to risk being ambushed by a tiger-striped soldier as he blundered about in search of his Captain and so he stayed put.

Learning, it blundered into the barrier wall and tumbled back into a cloud of lifted Stardust.

The lifeless optelectronic brains of the berserkers never blundered, but sometimes they were forced to make decisions based on inadequate information.

Their alien smell filled the room, until Sunbright felt like some fly blundered into a spiderweb.

Ox blundered into a golem that clamped his ankles and tangled his feet.

Niccolini feared that His Holiness and the Holy Office, having made a great show of dragging Galileo to their doorstep, would not admit to having blundered by arresting an innocent man.

They usually blundered around in the area between the fences until the early morning sun or an SO-17 flame-thrower reduced their lifeless husk to a cinder, and released the tormented soul to make its way through eternity in peace.

She is as true as steel, but no one can see them together as I have done for months, and as you have done too, without knowing them to be the most mis-matched pair that ever blundered into marriage.