Shambles meaning

shăm'bəlz
A meat market or butcher shop.
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A slaughterhouse.
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The definition of a shambles is a state or condition of complete disorder.

An example of a shambles is an extremely messy house after a teen has a huge party when his parents are away for the weekend.

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A slaughterhouse.
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A place where meat is sold; butcher's stall or shop.
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A scene of great slaughter, bloodshed, or carnage.
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Any scene or condition of great destruction or disorder.

Rooms left a shambles by conventioneers.

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A scene of great disorder or ruin.
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A great mess or clutter.

This website is a shambles.

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(archaic) A butcher's shop.
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Third-person singular simple present indicative form of shamble.
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Origin of shambles

  • From Middle English shamel, shambil place where meat is butchered and sold from Old English sceamol table, counter (as one on which items for sale are placed) from Latin scabillum, scamillum diminutive of scamnum bench, stool
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • From Old English scamul. A borrowing from Vulgar Latin scamellum, diminutive of Latin scamnum (“bench").
    From Wiktionary

Shambles Sentence Examples

  • His whole life was in shambles because of her.

  • The Greyfriars, Minorites or Franciscans, first settled in Cornhill, and in 1224 John Ewin made over to them an estate situated in the ward of Farringdon Within and in the parish of St Nicholas in the Shambles, where their friary was built.

  • By the time World War II ended, the Royal Asscher Company was left in shambles.

  • Most of the eastern seaboard is in shambles.

  • Wave action is seen in the numerous caverns, and south-east of Portland Bill, the southern extremity of the isle, is a bank called the Shambles, between which and the land there flows a dangerous current called the Race of Portland.

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