shambles

British  

/ ˈʃæmbəlz /

noun

1. a place of great disorder

   the room was a shambles after the party

2. a place where animals are brought to be slaughtered

3. any place of slaughter or carnage

4. dialect a row of covered stalls or shops where goods, originally meat, are sold

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Etymology

Origin of shambles

C14 shamble table used by meat vendors, from Old English sceamel stool, from Late Latin scamellum a small bench, from Latin scamnum stool

Example Sentences

It never made any connection with the Spurs players, while a welter of tactical shifts hinted that he was struggling to work out how to get the best out of the shambles he had inherited.

From BBC

Under US pressure, she is grappling with leading a country saddled with the world's largest proven oil reserves but an economy in shambles.

From Barron's

"It was just a shambles on the day that she died," Kay said.

From BBC

Experts say these policy shifts have broken a student loan system that was already in shambles, leaving nearly 45 million borrowers, disproportionately women, in financial and emotional distress.

From Salon

Cuba's ageing electricity generation system is in shambles, with daily power outages of up to 20 hours the norm in parts of the island, which lacks the fuel needed to generate power.

From Barron's

Related Words

• disarray