Shambles

How to spell shambles

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shambles

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shambles mean?

1. nounA state of total disorder, confusion, or mess.

Shambles in a sentence

• The kitchen was an absolute shambles after the dinner party.

• The entire project descended into a shambles once the funding fell through.

Where does shambles come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travels a surprisingly grim road. It began with the Latin scamellum, a diminutive of scamnum meaning 'bench' or 'stool', which Old English borrowed as sceamol for a footstool or low table. By the medieval period a 'shamble' had narrowed to mean specifically the table or stall on which a butcher displayed and sold meat. From there the plural 'shambles' came to mean the whole meat market, and then, vividly, the slaughterhouse itself; many old town streets called 'The Shambles' still survive in England from exactly this trade. Because a slaughterhouse was a scene of blood and carnage, by the 1500s 'shambles' figuratively meant any scene of bloody chaos, and by modern times it softened into the everyday sense of a complete mess or state of disorder. The lingering -s on the end is the old plural, which is why the word looks plural but is used as a singular: a shambles, not a shamble.

How the word is built

• shamble (from Old English sceamol: bench, stall)
• -s (plural form now treated as a singular noun)