When we say something is in shambles, we probably have no idea what we’re actually likening it to. Where does this word come from?
Well, shamble began its life in Old English as scamol, meaning a bench or stool. From there, it began to be used as a table in a marketplace stall (by the 1300s), and then (by the 1400s) particularly one that sold meat or fish, which was when the current spelling began to appear as well.
So for a while, it meant “a place where meat or fish is sold.” Then by the mid-1500s, it evolved into “slaughterhouse.” By the 1590s, it was used metaphorically as “a place of butchery.” But it wasn’t until 1901 that the “butchery” meaning, which was often invoked when things were bloody and gross, began to take on the less-bloody and more-metaphorical meaning of “confusion, mess.” That’s also the point where we began pluralizing it.
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 
