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

bumblingly adverb

… none of them truly wants him in her home while he tries, bumblingly, to get his act together …

—Laura Collins-Hughes

Examples of bumbling in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

On his lot, Rogen’s bumbling exec Matt Remick typically fails to compromise, as a creature of and a victim to the system he’s been charged with minding. —Brittany Allen, Literary Hub, 23 Sep. 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

This horror film from director Na Hong-jin is set in a quiet rural village in South Korea, where bumbling police officer Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won) goes about his everyday work in a humdrum manner. —Travis Bean, Forbes.com, 13 Sep. 2025

With its buzzy energy and sympathetic — if bumbling — criminals, Lumet withholds crucial information from the viewer until the final portion of the film. —Christina Newland, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1660, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bumbling

• crumbling
• fumbling
• grumbling
• humbling
• mumbling
• rumbling
• stumbling
• tumbling