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Definition of shambles noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

shambles

noun
 
/ˈʃæmblz/
 
/ˈʃæmblz/
[singular] (informal)
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  1. a situation in which there is a great lack of order or understanding synonym mess
    • The press conference was a complete shambles.
    • What a shambles!
    • He’s made an absolute shambles of his career.
    • in a shambles The government is in a shambles over Europe.
    Extra Examples
    • Our defending was a complete shambles.
    • The economy was in a shambles last year.
  2. a place which is dirty or untidy synonym mess
    • The house was a shambles.
  3. Word Originlate Middle English (in the sense ‘meat market’): plural of earlier shamble ‘stool, stall’, of West Germanic origin, from Latin scamellum, diminutive of scamnum ‘bench’.
See shambles in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

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