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shamble

 - 4 dictionary results

sham⋅ble

1  [sham-buhl]
Use shamble in a Sentence
–noun
1. shambles, (used with a singular or plural verb)
a. a slaughterhouse.
b. any place of carnage.
c. any scene of destruction: to turn cities into shambles.
d. any scene, place, or thing in disorder: Her desk is a shambles.
2. British Dialect. a butcher's shop or stall.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME shamel, OE sc(e)amel stool, table < LL scamellum, L scamillum, dim. of L scamnum bench; cf. G Schemel

sham⋅ble

2  [sham-buhl] verb, -bled, -bling, noun
–verb (used without object)
1. to walk or go awkwardly; shuffle.
–noun
2. a shambling gait.
Origin:
1675–85; perh. short for shamble-legs one that walks wide (i.e., as if straddling), reminiscent of the legs of a shamble 1 (in earlier sense “butcher's table”)
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To shamble
sham·ble   (shām'bəl)   
intr.v.   sham·bled, sham·bling, sham·bles
To walk in an awkward, lazy, or unsteady manner, shuffling the feet.
n.  A shuffling gait.

[Probably from obsolete shamble, awkward, ungainly, from Middle English schamil, butcher's table; see shambles.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

shamble  (v.)
"to walk with a shuffling gait," 1681, from an adj. meaning "ungainly, awkward" (1607), from shamble (n.) "table, bench" (see shambles) perhaps on the notion of the splayed legs of bench, or the way a worker sits astride it. Cf. Fr. bancal "bow-legged, wobbly" (of furniture), prop. "bench-legged," from banc "bench."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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