- Brit. a place where meat is sold; butcher's stall or shop: now only a local usage, esp. in street names
- a slaughterhouse
- a scene of great slaughter, bloodshed, or carnage
- any scene or condition of great destruction or disorder: rooms left a shambles by conventioneers
Origin of shambles
Middle English schamel, bench, as for displaying meat for sale from Old English scamol, bench or stool, akin to German schemel from early West Germanic borrowing from Classical Latin scamellum, diminutive from scamnum, bench from Indo-European base an unverified form skabh-, an unverified form skambh-, to prop up from source Sanskrit skámbhana-, a support
