shambles

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 1, 2024 is: shambles SHAM-bulz noun What It Means Shambles refers to a place or state in which there is great confusion, disorder, or destruction. // The house party they had over the weekend left the entire living room in shambles. cynosure in Context "In this film, three friends … reconnect and find themselves attempting to relive the glory days after suffering several defeats that life has thrown their way. After heading to a once-beloved ski resort, they find it in shambles." — Christopher Hinton, Digital Trends, 24 Feb. 2024 Did You Know? The story of shambles appears to be a bit of a shambles: somehow, a word meaning "footstool" gave us a word meaning "mess." It all starts with the Latin word scamillum, the diminutive of scamnum, meaning "stool, bench." Modify the spelling and you get the Old English word sceamol, meaning "stool." Alter again to the Middle English word shameles (the plural of schamel), and give it a more specific meaning: "a vendor’s table." Tweak that a little and you arrive at the 15th-century term shambles, meaning "meat market." A century or so takes shambles from "meat market" to "slaughterhouse," then to figurative application as a term referring to a place of terrible slaughter or bloodshed (say, a battlefield). The grim connotations fade over time, but the messiness remains, and voilà: the modern sense of shambles meaning "mess" or "state of great confusion." Transition accomplished!