- shambles (n.)
- late 15c., "meat or fish market," from schamil "table, stall for vending" (c.1300), from Old English scomul, sceamel "stool, footstool, table for vending," an early West Germanic borrowing (cf. Old Saxon skamel, Middle Dutch schamel, Old High German scamel, German schemel) from Latin scamillus "low stool," ultimately a diminutive of scamnum "stool, bench," from PIE root *skabh- "to prop up, support." In English, sense evolved to "slaughterhouse" (1540s), "place of butchery" (1590s), and "confusion, mess" (1901).