-lz noun plural but usually singular in construction
( also shamble )
Etymology: shambles from plural of shamble meat market (also obsolete English shamble table for the exhibition of meat for sale), from Middle English shamel table for the exhibition of meat for sale, shop counter, footstool, from Old English scamul, sceamul money changer's table, stool; akin to Middle Dutch schamel footstool, Old High German scamal; all from a prehistoric West Germanic word borrowed from (assumed) Vulgar Latin scamellus small bench, diminutive of Latin scamnum bench, stool; akin to Sanskrit skabhnoti he supports
1. archaic : a meat market
2. : slaughterhouse 2
3.
a. : a place of mass slaughter or bloodshed
the bridge instantly became a shambles , every officer and man on that key position being either killed or wounded — Russell Grenfell
b.
(1) : a scene of great destruction
the imposing entrance … is a shambles and inside the quadrangle the great aula is demolished from a direct bomb hit — J.G.Gray
(2) : the result of great destruction : wreckage , wreck
have not cleaned up the shambles of bombing — Ruth Benedict
this buxom ball of fire makes a shambles of decorum — Irving Kolodin
(3) : the state of being wrecked
the bombers left the city in shambles
c.
(1) : a scene of great disorder
the apartment became a shambles — S.J.Perelman
conference this year was an utter shambles chaired by an elderly lawyer who apparently could neither speak nor hear — A.F.Buchan
(2) : great confusion : mess
their ideals are vanity and illusion and their pretended moralities a shambles — Irwin Edman