From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishstumble on/across/upon something phrasal verbFINDto find or discover something by chance and unexpectedly SYN come across Researchers have stumbled across a drug that may help patients with Parkinson’s disease. → stumble→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
stumble on/across/upon • Shame they couldn't have stumbled upon a more dramatic way of doing it.• You might stumble across a phrase or image that seems possible, but as a whole this faux scrapbook reeks.• You might even stumble upon a theorem or two in your researches.• In 1988, he stumbled across an indirect link in the scientific literature between Raynaud's disease and dietary fish oil.• But as I search deeper and deeper I stumbled upon endurance.• Geologists seem to stumble on some of the really oddball animals, assigning them delightful descriptors.• An hour later and our gasping, sweaty bodies stumble across the boulders of the gully's scree fan.• At that the discussion again broke down, but somehow they stumbled on to plans for a dance and a party. 