Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

Fine Dictionary

shambles

ˈʃæmbəlz
WordNet
  1. (n) shambles
    a building where animals are butchered
  2. (n) shambles
    a condition of great disorder
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (n.pl) Shambles
    sham′blz stalls on which butchers exposed their meat for sale, hence a flesh-market: a slaughter-house.
Quotations
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Etymology

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary A.S. scamel (Ger. schämel), a stool—Low L. scamellum, for L. scabellum, dim. of scamnum, a bench.

Usage in the news

West Virginia University’s once-proud football team has slipped into shamble status. bdtonline.com

West Virginia University's once-proud football team has slipped into shamble status. theintermountain.com

WVU has fallen into shambles . theintermountain.com

Syria's civil war leaves its cities, economy and cultural heritage in shambles . foxnews.com

Jets' receiving unit in shambles . espn.go.com

Risch: Obama's Foreign Policy 'In Shambles '. boiseweekly.com

Iran policy in shambles . heraldnet.com

Rotation in a shambles . heraldnews.com

Editor's Viewpoint: Offers shambles has no quick fix. belfasttelegraph.co.uk

University's shambles can't be repeated. belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Her Staten Island neighborhood is in shambles. jla.com

He has inherited an economy in shambles and on the brink of a severe recession. blog.al.com

Zombies shamble down Front Street North during the 2011 Downtown Zombie Walk. issaquahpress.com

Forget "The Walking Dead": Horror classic Zombie shambles through the Roxie. sfbg.com

The shambles in the United Church of Christ -- and America. spectator.org

Usage in literature

Nick dropped like an ox struck down in the shambles. "With Links of Steel" by Nicholas Carter

Did a leaf rustle, we started; did a shambling shape in the gloom whine for alms, we made ready for onset. "Helmet of Navarre" by Bertha Runkle

Garth shambled sullenly on. "The Shadow of a Crime A Cumbrian Romance" by Hall Caine

LOOKED UP TO SEE A SHABBY, SHAMBLING, OLDISH MAN COMING AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE. "McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4." by Various

It was a horrid business, and the place was known as Shambles Camp. "The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2" by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

As we approached the door a man got up from a bench and shambled away. "The Inner Shrine" by Basil King

The dead and injured, smashed and broken by the shells, littered the summit till it was a bloody, reeking shambles. "London to Ladysmith via Pretoria" by Winston Spencer Churchill

Mose just then shambled past the window, and Ford sat down to wait until the cook was safe in the kitchen. "The Uphill Climb" by B. M. Bower

At his bidding the shoulders and trunk, and lastly the legs of a slouching shambling man of forty-eight or fifty entered the room. "The Just and the Unjust" by Vaughan Kester

The city was a shambles; every man, woman, or child had been put to the sword. "The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay" by Maurice Hewlett

Usage in poetry
O it were pleasant with you
To fly from this tussle of foes,
The shambles, the charnel, the wrinkle!
To dwell in yon dribble of dew
On the cheek of your sovereign rose,
And live the young life of a twinkle.
There's nothing left to hope for more.
Poor fool, to think he might atone!
He sees in a mist a fast-shut door.
Shambling and blear-eyed and alone
He goes, and darkness covers him,
Who saw the glory and the gleam.
Blow, bitter wind, with a cry of death,
Blow over the western bay:
The sunshine is gone from the desolate girl,
And before is the doomster-day,
And the saw-dust red with the heart's-blood shed
In the shambles of Fotheringay.
Must they die, and die in vain,
Like a flock of shambled sheep?
Then the Yankee grit and brain
Must be dead or gone to sleep,
And our sailors’ gallant story of a hundred years of glory
Let us sell for a song, selling cheap!
The mind triumphant - making hideous war,
A reeking shambles all impossible,
Yet luring on the nations near and far
To that red end? Arise, ye dead, and tell
How in our hate we hate no less than ye,
And in our love love not more tenderly.
With death in the terrible flickering gloom of the fight
I was cruel and fierce with despair; I was naked and bound;
was stricken: and Beauty returned through the shambles of night;
In the faces of men she returned; and their triumph I found.