to stumble and so be brought down: to totter, lose one's footing, and fall, whether from weakness, in defeat, or into ruin
At its core this verb pictures a body that can no longer keep its feet. The legs buckle, the step falters, and the person goes down. Hebrew uses that single picture across a wide range of situations, so the same word can describe an exhausted traveler whose knees give way, an army collapsing on the battlefield, and a nation falling into ruin under the weight of its own wrongdoing.
The senses below are not different words but one image seen in different settings. The literal sense of a tottering, failing body is the anchor. From there the word reaches naturally to defeat (soldiers cut down stumble and fall) and to moral collapse (a people who go astray are pictured as stumbling and falling headlong). The thread running through all of them is downward motion that the stumbler cannot stop.
The verb also turns outward. In some forms it is not the stumbler but the one who trips others: a wicked schemer who lays a snare, a false teacher who makes people fall, an idol that brings its worshipers down. Here the same falling is inflicted rather than suffered, but it is the same fall.
A recurring note of hope sits alongside the word: those who stumble can be helped up, and the strong are warned that they too will stumble if they trust their own strength rather than God.