tumble
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tumble¹
- /ˈtʌmbl̩/
- /ˈtʊmbl̩/ Northern England
Rhymes with -ʌmbəl
Where it comes from
From Middle English tumblen (“to fall over and over again, tumble”), frequentative of Middle English tumben (“to fall, leap, dance”), from Old English tumbian, from Proto-West Germanic *tumbōn, tūmōn, from Proto-Germanic *tumbōną, tūmōną (“to turn, rotate”). Cognate with Middle Dutch tumelen (whence Dutch tuimelen), Middle Low German tumelen, tummelen, German taumeln, Danish tumle, Swedish tumla, tumbla (“to tumble”), Faroese tumla, tumbla (“to walk heavily and noisily, stagger”).
noun tumbles
- A fall, especially end over end. I took a tumble down the stairs and broke my tooth.
- A disorderly heap. When at last we stopped in a tumble of bodies on the grass, laughing, and in Dad's case, out of breath, we were like little kids (I mean 5 or 6! After all I am 12!) at the end of a playground session.
- An act of sexual intercourse. Wouldn't it be jolly now, / To take our Aertex panters off / And have a jolly tumble in / The jolly, jolly sun?
verb tumbles · tumbling · tumbled
- To fall end over end; to roll over and over. He who tumbles from a tower surely has a greater blow than he who slides from a molehill.
- To throw headlong. His hand went after his revolver almost that instant mine did. I was a second too quick for him, for my shot tumbled him from his mule just as his ball whistled harmlessly past by my head.
- To perform gymnastics such as somersaults, rolls, and handsprings.
- To drop rapidly. Share prices tumbled after the revelation about the company's impending failure.
- To smooth and polish (e.g. gemstones or pebbles) by means of a rotating tumbler.
-
To have sexual intercourse.
Similar: bump uglies, have sex, roll around, approach, cohabit, common, company, copulate, couple, engage in sex, exchange flesh, have intimate relations
- To move or rush in a headlong or uncontrolled way. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question ; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find ou
- To muss, to make disorderly; to tousle or rumple. to tumble a bed
- To obscure the audit trail of funds by means of a tumbler. Now it’s easy to purchase bitcoins on any number of mainstream markets and “tumble” them so that their point of purchase is obscured.
- To comprehend; often in tumble to. Speaking of this language, a costermonger said to me: "The Irish can't tumble to it anyhow; the Jews can tumble better, but we're their masters. Some of the young salesmen at Billingsgate understand us, — but only at Billingsgate; […]
Tumble²
proper noun
- A village in Llannon community, Carmarthenshire, Wales (OS grid ref SN5411).
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: collapse, crumble, topple, fall, break down, whirl, crumple, latch on, get it, skirl, spill, get onto, catch on, cotton on, twig, whirl around
Translations
Every language
noun a fall
| Español | caída |
|---|---|
| Português | tombo |
| Français | culbute |
| Deutsch | Sturz, Fall, Überschlag, Absturz, Purzelbaum, Rolle |
| Italiano | caduta, tombola |
| Русский | паде́ние padénije, кувырка́ние kuvyrkánije |
verb to realise
| Ελληνικά | ανθίζομαι anthízomai |
|---|
verb to fall end over end
| Español | caer, revolverse |
|---|---|
| 中文 | 翻滾 /翻滚 fāngǔn, 跌倒 diēdǎo |
| Português | cair |
| Français | dégringoler, culbuter |
| Deutsch | stolpern, herunterstürzen, herunterfallen, sich überschlagen, herumfallen, rollen |
| Italiano | cadere, precipitare, rovinare, crollare, ruzzolare |
| Ελληνικά | πέσει pései |
| Русский | ру́шиться rúšitʹsja, обру́шиться obrúšitʹsja, опроки́дываться oprokídyvatʹsja, опроки́нуться oprokínutʹsja, па́дать pádatʹ, упа́сть upástʹ |
verb to roll over and over
| Русский | кувырка́ться kuvyrkátʹsja |
|---|
verb to drop rapidly
| Deutsch | purzeln |
|---|
Talk about this word "tumble." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/tumble. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. tumble. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/tumble "tumble." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/tumble.Cite this
@misc{tumble_2026,
title = {tumble},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/tumble},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
