_Blunder_.--What is the origin of this word? In Woolston's _First Discourse
on Miracles_ (Lond. 1729), at p 28., I find this passage:--
"In another place he intimates what are meant by oxen and sheep, viz.,
the literal sense of the Scriptures. And if the literal sense be
irrational and nonsensical, the metaphor we must allow to be proper,
inasmuch as nowadays dull and foolish and absurd stuff we call _Bulls_,
_Fatlings_, and _Blunders_."
This would seem to imply that in Woolston's days _blunder_ was the name of
some animal; but in no dictionary have I been able to find such a
signification attributed to it. The Germans use the words _bock_ and
_pudel_ in the same sense as our word _blunder_.