Word.ws English Dictionary

stumbles upon

stumbles upon is the third-person singular simple present indicative of stumble upon.

Meaning of stumble upon

Verb

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

  1. (figuratively) To discover or find something by accident.
    • Underneath a black cliff where the incoming tide smashed on the shingle, they stumbled upon the mail hood of Hrothgar's murdered vassal.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 35
  2. (figuratively) To meet somebody by chance.

Questions about stumbles upon

What is stumbles upon the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Stumbles upon is the third-person singular simple present indicative of stumble upon.

Words near stumbles upon in the dictionary

  1. stumbles across
  2. stumbles against
  3. stumbles into
  4. stumbles on
  5. stumbles onto
  6. stumbles upon
  7. stumblesome
  8. stumblest
  9. stumbleth
  10. stumblier
  11. stumbliest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stumbles upon (page history and authors); stumble upon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “stumbles upon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stumbles_upon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.