The word "shamble" has two totally different meanings. First, to shamble, or to shamble along, is to walk in a slow, awkward way, as if your feet are too heavy, or as if your legs are really stiff and far apart. Here's a zombie shambling across the grass.
If you're very tired in the morning, you might shamble toward the kitchen for breakfast, or shamble into class, yawning and dragging your feet. This guy is shambling along because he hurt his leg, so he's walking awkwardly.
Second, if a place is in shambles, or if a place is a shambles, it's in a very messy state, with stuff all over the place. I bet your room is in shambles if you haven't tidied up in over a year!
A city might be in shambles during a war. That means that buildings are destroyed, and there's rubble everywhere. It's terrible.
By the way, even though this may sound weird to you, we can say that a place is a shambles. Yes, "a shambles," as in "The city is a shambles after the bombing." Strange as it sounds, "shambles" can be a singular noun.
Now, you might be wondering, "Why are there two completely different meanings for this word?" Sometimes words have totally separate meanings because the words themselves arose in different places and at different times: separately, different people just so happened to put together the same string of sounds. Other times, words start out meaning one thing and then branch off into lots of different meanings, and that's what happened with "shamble."
(Source: original photo)
"Shamble" traces back to an Old English word which meant "a stool or a bench: something you step on or sit on," as well as "a table where you sell things." From there, the meaning of the word branched.
In one direction, "shambles" came to mean "a market for selling meat or fish (with lots of tables)." And because fish and meat markets tend to be very messy, "shambles" also came to mean "a place that's a huge mess."
And in another direction, "shambles" dropped the "s," and "shamble" came to mean "to walk in a stiff way, like your legs are the legs of a bench or a table."
(Source: original video)
So although the two meanings of "shambles" are like distant cousins—"walks stiffly" and "a disaster area"—they're actually related, both tracing back to the idea of a bench or table.
Make a flash card:
You can write your own definition and choose your own picture, or copy mine.
Term
Definition
Picture
shamble
move along slowly and painfully; or, a very messy state
Write your own sentence!
You can use either of the two ideas I'll suggest, or you can invent your own. Include as much detail as you can!
