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Stumble vs Topple - What's the difference?

stumble | topple |

As verbs the difference between stumble and topple

is that stumble is to trip or fall; to walk clumsily while topple is to push, throw over, overturn or overthrow something.

As a noun stumble

is a fall, trip or substantial misstep.

stumble

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A fall, trip or substantial misstep.
  • An error or blunder.
  • A clumsy walk.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=52, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The new masters and commanders , passage=From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts. For mariners leaving the port after lonely nights on the high seas, the delights of the B52 Night Club and Stallion Pub lie a stumble away.}}

    Synonyms

    * (a blunder) blooper, blunder, boo-boo, defect, error, fault, faux pas, fluff, gaffe, lapse, mistake, slip, thinko * See also

    Verb

    (stumbl)
  • To trip or fall; to walk clumsily.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • He stumbled up the dark avenue.
  • *
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for.}}
  • To make a mistake or have trouble.
  • To cause to stumble or trip.
  • (figurative) To mislead; to confound; to cause to err or to fall.
  • * Milton
  • False and dazzling fires to stumble men.
  • * John Locke
  • One thing more stumbles me in the very foundation of this hypothesis.
  • To strike or happen (upon a person or thing) without design; to fall or light by chance; with on'', ''upon'', or ''against .
  • * Dryden
  • Ovid stumbled , by some inadvertency, upon Livia in a bath.
  • * C. Smart
  • Forth as she waddled in the brake, / A grey goose stumbled on a snake.

    Derived terms

    * * * *

    See also

    *

    Anagrams

    *

    topple

    English

    Verb

    (toppl)
  • to push, throw over, overturn or overthrow something
  • * The massed crowds toppled the statue of the former dictator
  • to totter and fall, or to lean as if about to do so
  • * The pile of pennies began to topple