And as a guarantee of a Third World economy in shambles, Scotland is oil-rich.
The unity government that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas established with Hamas is now in shambles.
But even the most ardent supporters of negotiations with the Taliban recognize that the so-called peace process is in shambles.
Brilliant as he is in the courtroom, his self-destructive personality leaves his personal life in shambles.
The fatherland is a shambles, Bolivarian socialism has failed, and Comandante Chávez is dead.
He staggered back to his room like a bullock to its pen after it has had its death-blow in the shambles.
The place was become a shambles, and the very kennels ran with blood.
And the shambles he had seen there couldn't have been done by human beings.
When asked what it was like in there Mr. Nicholas B. muttered the only word "shambles."
When asked what it was like in there, Mr. Nicholas B. muttered only the word "shambles."
early 15c., "meat or fish market," from schamil "table, stall for vending" (c.1300), from Old English scamol, scomul "stool, footstool (also figurative); bench, table for vending," an early West Germanic borrowing (cf. Old Saxon skamel "stool," Middle Dutch schamel, Old High German scamel, German schemel, Danish skammel "footstool") from Latin scamillus "low stool, a little bench," ultimately a diminutive of scamnum "stool, bench," from PIE root *skabh- "to prop up, support." In English, sense evolved from "place where meat is sold" to "slaughterhouse" (1540s), then figuratively "place of butchery" (1590s), and generally "confusion, mess" (1901, usually in plural).
"to walk with a shuffling gait, walk awkwardly and unsteadily," 1680s, from an adjective meaning "ungainly, awkward" (c.1600), from shamble (n.) "table, bench" (see shambles), perhaps on the notion of the splayed legs of bench, or the way a worker sits astride it. Cf. French bancal "bow-legged, wobbly" (of furniture), properly "bench-legged," from banc "bench." The noun meaning "a shambling gait" is from 1828. Related: Shambled; shambling.
