shambles

From Middle English schamels, plural of schamel, from Old English sċeamol, sċamul (“bench, stool”), from Proto-West Germanic *skamul, *skamil (“stool, bench”), from Vulgar Latin scamellum, from Latin scamillum (“little bench, ridge”), from Latin scamnum (“bench, ridge, breadth of a field”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃæmbəlz/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æmbəlz

shambles (countable and uncountable, plural shambles)

1. (countable, uncountable) A scene of great disorder or ruin.
   • 1989 March 15, Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes:

     Considering my life's in shambles right now, couldn't you at least take the blame?

2. (countable) A great mess or clutter.

   This bedroom is a shambles.

3. (countable) A scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation.
4. (countable) A slaughterhouse.
5. (countable, archaic) A butcher's shop.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 10:25:

     Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake.

   • 1729, [Jonathan Swift], A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents, or the Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, Dublin: […] S[arah] Harding, […], →OCLC, page 8:

     As to our City of Dublin, Shambles may be appointed for this purpoſe, in the moſt convenient parts of it, and Butchers vve may be aſſured vvill not be be vvanting, […]

• fish shambles
• omnishambles
• shambolic
• shambolism
• shambly

shambles

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of shamble

• “shambles”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “shambles”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.