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
Fairbairn culminated the bumbling drive by missing the 28-yard field goal attempt.
—Larry Holder, The Athletic, 24 Nov. 2024
More seminal roles followed for Newhart, like his gig as bumbling educator Tom Halliwell in In & Out (1997) and as Papa Elf opposite Will Ferrell in Elf (2003).
—Lynette Rice, EW.com, 18 July 2024
Especially in the pilot, St. Denis Medical seems not to get that while a bumbling newbie archetype like Leeper’s Matt can be very funny in a workplace context, the humor doesn’t apply in medical situations where lives hang in the balance.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 Oct. 2024
In such a milieu, she was encouraged to read and study, but was soon married off to an even grander aristocrat, the Marquis du Châtelet, a well-meaning, somewhat bumbling Army officer, who was interested only in his military exploits and soon forbidden by his wife to discuss them at the table.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2024
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Larry Holder, The Athletic, 24 Nov. 2024
More seminal roles followed for Newhart, like his gig as bumbling educator Tom Halliwell in In & Out (1997) and as Papa Elf opposite Will Ferrell in Elf (2003).
—Lynette Rice, EW.com, 18 July 2024
Especially in the pilot, St. Denis Medical seems not to get that while a bumbling newbie archetype like Leeper’s Matt can be very funny in a workplace context, the humor doesn’t apply in medical situations where lives hang in the balance.
—Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 30 Oct. 2024
In such a milieu, she was encouraged to read and study, but was soon married off to an even grander aristocrat, the Marquis du Châtelet, a well-meaning, somewhat bumbling Army officer, who was interested only in his military exploits and soon forbidden by his wife to discuss them at the table.
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for bumbling
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Cite this Entry
“Bumbling.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bumbling. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
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