bumbling
adjective
bum·bling
ˈbəm-b(ə-)liŋ 
: awkwardly blundering or faltering
a bumbling speaker
: prone to or marked by foolish mistakes
a bumbling attempt to fix the problem
… many Americans see the F.D.A. as bumbling and inefficient …—
Herbert Burkholz
Herbert Burkholz
bumblingly
adverb
… none of them truly wants him in her home while he tries, bumblingly, to get his act together …
—Laura Collins-Hughes
Laura Collins-Hughes
Examples of bumbling in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Stateside, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, featuring the people’s boyfriend Josh O’Connor as a bumbling local art thief, is hitting theaters.
—Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 23 Oct. 2025
Over the course of 2½ hours, the Korean masterpiece goes a lot of different places following a bumbling cop worried about his family when a dangerous infection turns his neighbors into monsters.
—Brian Truitt, USA Today, 21 Oct. 2025
That, along with Trevor Lawrence’s stumbling and bumbling game winner Monday evening, led to yours truly spending Tuesday night rewatching every touchdown through five weeks of 2025.
—Saad Yousuf, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
Notably, Colman won Best Actress at the 91st Academy Awards in 2019 for her role as the bumbling Queen Anne in The Favourite.
—Daysia Tolentino, Entertainment Weekly, 21 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for bumbling
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Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 23 Oct. 2025
Over the course of 2½ hours, the Korean masterpiece goes a lot of different places following a bumbling cop worried about his family when a dangerous infection turns his neighbors into monsters.
—Brian Truitt, USA Today, 21 Oct. 2025
That, along with Trevor Lawrence’s stumbling and bumbling game winner Monday evening, led to yours truly spending Tuesday night rewatching every touchdown through five weeks of 2025.
—Saad Yousuf, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2025
Notably, Colman won Best Actress at the 91st Academy Awards in 2019 for her role as the bumbling Queen Anne in The Favourite.
—Daysia Tolentino, Entertainment Weekly, 21 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for bumbling
Cite this Entry
“Bumbling.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bumbling. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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