Forms: 4 blondyre, 5 blondre, blonder, blundur, 6 blounder, 4– blunder. [app. f. the vb.: though extant instances of the sb. are earlier.]
† 1. Confusion, bewilderment, trouble, disturbance, clamor. Obs. (The early quotations are vague in sense: the latest shade off into 2.)
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 18. Oft boþe blysse and blunder Ful skete hatz skyfted.
c. 1375. ? Barbour, St. Theodora, 542. Þat wald bring me in sik blondyre.
c. 1440. York Myst., xxxiii. 94. With his blure he bredis mekill blondre.
c. 1450. Agst. Friars, in Rel. Ant., I. 322. Amonges men of holy chirch, thai maken mochel blonder.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 30. I shalle make ye stille as stone, begynnar of blunder.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 270. Hoste that is out of araye and in a blounder scatered.
1600. Holland, Livy, X. xlii. 383. He heard a confused crie and blunder [clamorem] in the citie. Ibid., xlii. 1124. The bruite was also blowne to Rome, and blunder there was of the death of Eumenes.
1774. Goldsmith, Retal., 21. Then, with chaos & blunders encircling my head, Let me ponder.
2. A gross mistake; an error due to stupidity or carelessness.
The words of Talleyrand as to the murder of the Duc d’Enghien—‘ces paroles stoïquement politiques, “C’est plus qu’un crime, c’est une faute”’ (Lucien Bonaparte, Mem., an. 1804 (1882), I. 432) have been englished, ‘It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder,’ and are often quoted or alluded to.
1706. Phillips, Blunder, a mistake, fault, or oversight.
1711. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 209. The twenty pounds I lend you is not to be included; so make no blunder.
1726. De Foe, Hist. Devil, I. v. (1840), 63. Another mistake, not to call it a blunder.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 239. The numerous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen years.
1865. Earl Derby, in Parl., 3 May. If the Confederate authorities had directly or indirectly sanctioned this assassination … it would be on their part worse than a crime, it would be a blunder.
a. 1867. Buckle, Misc. Wks. (1872), I. 25. Ingratitude aggravated by cruelty must … be a blunder as well as a crime.
¶ 1727. Woolston, Disc. Miracles (ed. 2), i. 28. Now-a-days, dull and foolish and absurd stuff we call Bulls, Fatlings and Blunders.
