different between sprawl vs stumble

English

Etymology

From Middle English spraulen, from Old English spreawlian, ultimately through a Proto-Germanic form cognate with *spreutan? (“to sprout”) from Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to strew”). Compare North Frisian spraweli.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sp???l/

Rhymes: -??l

• (US) IPA^(key): /sp??l/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /sp??l/

Verb

sprawl (third-person singular simple present sprawls, present participle sprawling, simple past and past participle sprawled)

1. To sit with the limbs spread out.
2. To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.

Translations

Noun

sprawl (countable and uncountable, plural sprawls)

1. An ungainly sprawling posture.
2. A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.

Translations

Derived terms

• urban sprawl

See also

• Los Angelization

References

• “sprawl”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, ?ISBN

English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *stam- (“to trip up; to stammer, stutter”), thereby related to German stumm (“mute”), Dutch stom (“dumb”). Doublet of stammer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?st?mb?l/
• Rhymes: -?mb?l

Noun

stumble (plural stumbles)

1. A fall, trip or substantial misstep.
2. An error or blunder.
3. A clumsy walk.

Synonyms

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

Translations

Verb

stumble (third-person singular simple present stumbles, present participle stumbling, simple past and past participle stumbled)

1. (intransitive) To trip or fall; to walk clumsily.

2. (intransitive) To make a mistake or have trouble.

3. (transitive) To cause to stumble or trip.
4. (transitive, figuratively) To mislead; to confound; to cause to err or to fall.
   • One thing more stumbles me in the very foundation of this hypothesis.

5. To strike or happen (upon a person or thing) without design; to fall or light by chance; with on, upon, or against.
   • 1680, John Dryden, Ovid's Epistles

     He [Ovid] had stumbled, by some inadvertency, upon the privacies of Livia […] in a bath.

   • 1754, Christopher Smart, Snake

     Forth as she waddled in the brake, / A grey goose stumbled on a snake.

Derived terms

• stumble across
• stumble against
• stumble on
• stumble upon

Translations

See also

• stumbling block

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “stumble”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• tumbles