shambles
/ˈʃamb(ə)lz
/plural noun [treated as singular]
1 informal A state of total disorder: my career was in a shambles...
- I think the border is in a shambles of smuggling, pollution, contagious diseases.
- I don't want to come home and find my half in a shambles.
- In 1853, Louisa Dalton Bird Cunningham was aboard a steamer on the Potomac sailing from Philadelphia to her plantation in South Carolina when she saw Mount Vernon in a shambles.
Synonyms
chaos, mess, muddle, confusion, disorder, disarray, disorganization, havoc, mare's nest
British informal dog's dinner, dog's breakfast, omnishambles, car crash
complete mess, pigsty;
North American pigpen
informal disaster area
British informal tip
2A butcher’s slaughterhouse (archaic except in place names): the shambles where the animals were slaughtered...
- The butchers' shambles, where animals were slaughtered and sold on Sundays, abutted the courthouse.
- Adjacent land was added to the market in the 1360s to bring butchers' stalls together into one spot as a shambles.