tumble on
verb1
Idiomatic To accidentally encounter (a person or situation).
- “I’m luck to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy tumbling on you just now! I’m in a devilish scrape […]”1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “chapter 17”, in The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 148:
- “He murdered the man all right. I tumbled on the truth by the merest accident, when I’d pretty nearly chucked the whole job.”1910, Edith Wharton, “The Bolted Door”, in Tales of Men and Ghosts, New York: Scribner, page 69:
1 more example
- 1931, E. Phillips Oppenheim, “What Sir Stephen Forgot” in Sinners Beware, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1932, p. 158, (first published as “In the Strongroom” in Collier’s Weekly, 11 April, 1931), “If it isn’t Peter Hames?” he cried. “God bless my soul! They told us over in New York that you were living in these parts, but to tumble on you like this! Why, we only landed here two minutes ago. I call this fine.”
- Synonyms
- chance upon, happen upon, stumble across