stumble across/on/onto/upon

idiom

: to find or learn about (something) unexpectedly

I stumbled across/on/upon this book by chance.

We stumbled onto/across the ruins of an old fort.

They stumbled on/upon a bizarre plot.

He stumbled onto the truth.

Examples of stumble across/on/onto/upon in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Young musicians still learning their way around an instrument are often more likely to stumble across a really cool idea, Cooper says. —Ed Masley, The Arizona Republic, 2 Apr. 2024

There’s also no need to allow packaging that might confuse young children who stumble on a stash. —Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, 29 Mar. 2024

Finding The Right Candidate One of the issues a DAO may stumble upon is the current application process, both because it is centralized in nature and because employers are increasingly wanting to hire people based on their skills rather than traditional education. —Dina Mattar, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024

Dudesy For people who stumble onto the Dudesy podcast without any context, the magical realism of the Dudesy AI can be a bit confusing. —Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 25 Jan. 2024

The twosome meet up with Ayaka’s eccentric friends at a sushi restaurant (the funniest sequence) and then stumble upon a game-changing discovery. —Randy Myers, The Mercury News, 5 Mar. 2024

The lawsuit may stumble on other grounds, like the claims about OpenAI’s creation of a for-profit arm. —Will Knight, WIRED, 1 Mar. 2024

Movies like 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — in which a group of friends stumble upon a family of cannibals and are chased by a guy wielding a chainsaw — which came out just before the end of the Vietnam War. —Brianna Scott, NPR, 1 Mar. 2024

In December, Ella Morton was lucky enough to stumble upon a set in her neighborhood of Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. —Dodai Stewart, New York Times, 15 Feb. 2024