Dictionary

blundery en · ADJ

Etymology

From blunder + -y.

Meanings

1. Characterised or marked by blunders or mistakes; messed up.
   • She lent a comfort and glamour to the Mississippi-midwestern milieu that had attracted me to Iowa City in the first place, and our lovemaking, which was amateur, blundery, and delightful, was like the high school sweetheart I’d never had. 1994 June, Edward Hoagland, “Strange Perfume”, in Esquire, volume 121, New York, N.Y., →ISSN, page 2, column 2:
   • At one end of the salad bar were small cups and two kinds of soup. At the other end were plates for salad. In our blundery state, we didn’t see the salad plates and began stuffing the cups with salad, but because they were so tiny, all we could get in were a couple of olives, a slice or two of cucumber, and a few croutons. 2004, Judy Goldman, Early Leaving, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, →ISBN, page 198:
   • There were some ineffective, blundery kinds of things I did. I remember that first press conference before I left, after John Hunter broke the news on Wednesday and I had a press conference on Saturday. A woman said, “I think you’re protesting and calling it something else.” As if protesting was a bad thing, and I didn’t catch that right away. So I made some mistakes like that. 1995, James W. Clinton, quoting Betty Boardman, “Betty Boardman”, in The Loyal Opposition: Americans in North Vietnam, 1965–1972, Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, →ISBN, page 97:
   • Each day must be recorded and there must be something to record, otherwise days are only days, each one gone forever when a new day comes. It’s nice to forget some awful blundery days, but it’s good to look back and learn not to blunder again. 1931 January 1, Edna Staebler, “The 1930s: Longing to Make Something”, in Christl Verduyn, editor, Must Write: Edna Staebler’s Diaries, Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, published 2005, →ISBN, page 47:
   • “[…] Do you know, we forgot to tell you the weather. What’s it going to be, Chrissy? Just don’t use any of those long words the rest of us won’t understand.” / “Hot and humid and it could be thundery.” / “Hot and human and it could be blundery. A bit like me, were you going to say? I thought you were here to produce me, not reduce me. No joking, folks, she’s the best producer I’ve ever had on Waves.” 2011, Ramsey Campbell, “With Mother”, in Ghosts Know, New York, N.Y.: Tor, published 2013, →ISBN, page 238:
   • Each line was different. First, New York–accented toughness: “What makes the Hottentot so hot?” Then ridiculously misplaced heroism: “Who put the ape in apricot?” Then self-assurance: “What makes the elephant charge his tusk?” Finally, with blundery tenderness: “What makes the muskrat guard his musk?” From mock elegance (he wants to be “king, just king!”) to big-hearted self-effacement (“Ain’t it the truth!”), [Bert] Lahr poured 20 years of comedy experience into those few golden moments of song. 1992, Ronald L. Smith, “Bert Lahr”, in Who’s Who in Comedy: Comedians, Comics and Clowns from Vaudeville to Today’s Stand-Ups, New York, N.Y.: Facts On File, Inc.; Oxford, Oxon: Facts On File Limited, →ISBN, page 258, column 1:
   • With a goal against them, they cracked up and within a few minutes, Kowloon were two up, though it was a blundery sort of lob by Melens which went in, when it might just as easily have been the clean sort of goal one prefers. 1932 November 7, “Wanderer” [pseudonym], “Blake Shines for Kowloon: Capital Win over the Navy”, in The Hongkong Telegraph, Hong Kong, page 8, column 5:
   • By now the food was scarce in the covers, the game too, and as I watched my dog, I saw less the work she was doing—headstrong and blundery enough at moments—than the work that in time she would do, all somehow foretold in her manner. 1992 April 29, Sydney Lea, “Alone, with Friends: From a Journal toward Springtime”, in The Georgia Review, volume 47, number 3, Athens, Ga., published fall 1993, →ISSN, page 450:
2. Apt or prone to cause blunders; troublesome; difficult; problematic.
   • Any other fool can see, they’ll live up what money they brought along and then go back to where they came from. Wherever that is. They don’t say. “East,” they say, and when you say, “Whereabouts in the East?” they look sad and look away, so you feel you’re on touchy ground, and make up your mind to let some more blundery person peck it out of them and tell you later. 1993, Isabel Miller [pseudonym; Alma Routsong], “A Dooryard Full of Flowers; Portrait by a Neighbor: Klaus”, in A Dooryard Full of Flowers and Other Short Pieces, Tallahassee, Fla.: The Naiad Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 2:
   • His little Rose was so pretty; she had such a quick appreciation of wit, and was so un-blundery in her gaiety. 1881, [Harriet] Cradock, chapter II, in Rose. […], volume I, London: Chapman & Hall, […], page 9:
   • Everything was extremely poststructural at Cornell, and besides not having a Continental philosophical background—which I quickly had to cultivate—I was also a Marxist and a feminist. […] So I did a lot of autodidactic browsing around the library and sitting in the stacks and finding books that nobody could tell me were good or bad. […] Eventually a group of people came to Cornell who were more on my planet, like Chris Newfield, Ann Cvetkovich, and Jeff Nunokowa, but I had been in graduate school for over four years before that happened. So I had all these years of being quite blundery and martianlike from the point of view of my colleagues as well as myself, which is the story that continues at my university, though for different reasons and less agonistically, perhaps. 2000 February 18, Andrew Hoberek, interviewer; Jacqueline Chambers, transcriber, quoting Lauren Berlant, “Citizen Berlant: An Interview with Lauren Berlant”, in Jeffrey J. Williams, editor, Critics at Work: Interviews 1993–2003, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, published 2004, →ISBN, page 266:
   • They’re such . . . blundery people. Sort of like Vancie. All full of words and no sense. 1994, B. J. Oliphant [pseudonym; Sheri Stewart Tepper], Death Served Up Cold, New York, N.Y.: Fawcett Gold Medal, →ISBN, page 231:
   • ‘My son loved secrets,’ Belle said. ‘Surprise-party-type secrets, not deep dark ones.’ Quinn had slid his arm lightly across Belle’s shoulders, but she seemed unaware of him. / ‘This was the surprise-party type,’ Ona told her. ‘Of interest to no one but a blundery old hen.’ 2016, Monica Wood, The One-in-a-Million Boy, London: Headline Review, →ISBN, page 152:
3. Moving blindly or clumsily; blundering.
   • The air is full of wings, / And of blundery beetle-things / That warn you with their whirring and their humming. 1948, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Goblin Feet”, in Gladys L[ucy] Adshead, Annis Duff, compilers, An Inheritance of Poetry, [Boston, Mass.]: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, page 66:
   • The “field” galloped by me in one-hundredth of a second. I remember the blundery hooves, whips, and tails. 1996, Jeffery Camp, “[Still and Fast Life] Race Horses”, in Paint: A Manual of Pictorial Thought and Practical Advice, New York, N.Y.: DK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, page 196, column 2:
   • Fist let Jack take his body back. / [That’s a relief,] sighed Jacked. / [All that flesh! It’s too big and too blundery. Not an easy ride.] / [You need to grow up in one to really get it.[…]] 2015, Al Robertson, Crashing Heaven, London: Gollancz, →ISBN, page 292:
   • She cast one fulminating look across the room and went on, “One of those glorious evenings when the forest seems luminous through the fog, everything perfectly detailed and the colors just fading, you know, as it got dark. I’d just had an epitome about the yellow ochre.” At my confused look she explained kindly, “You know: a realization. It came to me in a blinding flash. An epitome. So when I heard it, I thought it was Tim at first, because it seemed sort of blundery, and—well, I’m sorry, Charlotte, but after all, I knew it couldn’t be a bear.” / “Is there some reason Tim would blunder?” I asked. / Rosetta glanced apologetically at Charlotte and said, “Well, you know.” / “He drinks,” Charlotte said bluntly. 1998, Melisa Michaels, chapter 3, in Sister to the Rain, New York, N.Y.: Roc, →ISBN, pages 22–23:

Forms

Synonyms

blundersome · blundersome · blunderous · blunderful