Word of the Day:

"In this film, three friends … reconnect and find themselves attempting to relive the glory days after suffering several defeats that life has thrown their way. After heading to a once-beloved ski resort, they find it in shambles." — Christopher Hinton, Digital Trends, 24 Feb. 2024

More example sentences

The story of shambles appears to be a bit of a shambles: somehow, a word meaning "footstool" gave us a word meaning "mess." It all starts with the Latin word scamillum, the diminutive of scamnum, meaning "stool, bench." Modify the spelling and you get the Old English word sceamol, meaning "stool." Alter again to the Middle English word shameles (the plural of schamel), and give it a more specific meaning: "a vendor’s table." Tweak that a little and you arrive at the 15th-century term shambles, meaning "meat market." A century or so takes shambles from "meat market" to "slaughterhouse," then to figurative application as a term referring to a place of terrible slaughter or bloodshed (say, a battlefield). The grim connotations fade over time, but the messiness remains, and voilà: the modern sense of shambles meaning "mess" or "state of great confusion." Transition accomplished!