scuffled
v.— «The defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers scuffled through the first half of the season. Manager Tom Lasorda said he is growing weary of hearing about how hard his players are trying.» —“Randolph Says Guidry Survived on Heart Alone” by Steve Pivovar Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska) July 16, 1989. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Aaron in Los Angeles, California, notes while using public transit in Britain he and other passengers were instructed to alight from the front, meaning “exit the car from the front.” Alight comes from an Old English word alihtan, literally, to...