SHAMBLES • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Shambles

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/ʃˈæmbəlz/ Listen

Shambles

noun

A condition of great disorder.

A building where animals are butchered. Synonyms: abattoir, butchery, slaughterhouse.

Shamble

verb

(past & past part. shambled; pres. part. shambling)

Walk by dragging one's feet. Synonyms: scuffle, shuffle. "We heard his feet shuffling down the hall"

noun

Walking with a slow dragging motion without lifting your feet. Synonyms: shambling, shuffle, shuffling.

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Etymology of 'Shambles'

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"Shambles" Quotes from Famous Books

... room was small but was the best that could be obtained. Within the space of ten minutes it became a perfect shambles. The wounded were brought in without pause and under the candlelight Nikitin, two sanitars, and I worked until the sweat ran down our backs and arms in streams. It dripped from my nose, into my mouth, into my eyes. The wounds were horrible. No man ...

— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... red with passion. "If Norfolk thinks to act the King, and turn the city into a shambles,"—with a mighty oath—"he shall abye it. Here, Lord Cardinal—more, let the free pardon be drawn up for the two lads. And we will ourselves write to the Lord Mayor and to Norfolk that though they may work their will on the movers ...

— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... toughened skin, as in crocodiles and alligators, arranged in two overlapping rows of imbricated shields, exactly like the round tiles so common on the roofs of Italian cottages. The fish walks, or rather shambles along ungracefully, by the shuffling movement of a pair of stiff spines placed close behind his head, aided by the steering action of his tail, and a constant snake-like wriggling motion of his entire body. Leg spines of somewhat the same sort are found in the common English ...

— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... "It looks like a shambles!" Fred answered, glancing to right and left and indicating the victims of the whip writhing in ...

— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... you desire to boil, or Pork for the same, dressing it fresh from the Shambles, or Market, and salt it very well, just before you put it into the Pot; then as soon as your Meat is salted, take a coarse Linnen Cloth, and flour it very well, and then put the Meat into it, and tye it up close. Put this ...

— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

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