Shambles
late 16th century: probably from dialect shamble ‘ungainly’, perhaps from the phrase shamble legs, with reference to the legs of trestle tables (such as would be used in a meat market: see shambles).
wiktionary
From Middle English schamels, plural of schamel, from Old English sċeamol, sċamul(“bench, stool”), from Proto-West Germanic *skamul, *skamil(“stool, bench”), from Vulgar Latin scamellum, from Latin scamillum(“little bench, ridge”), from Latin scamnum(“bench, ridge, breadth of a field”).
etymonline
shambles (n.)
early 15c., "meat or fish market," from schamil "table, stall for vending" (c. 1300), from Old English scamol, scomul "stool, footstool" (also figurative); "bench, table for vending," an early Proto-Germanic borrowing (Old Saxon skamel "stool," Middle Dutch schamel, Old High German scamel, German schemel, Danish skammel "footstool") from Latin scamillus "low stool, a little bench," ultimately a diminutive of scamnum "stool, bench," from PIE root *skabh- "to prop up, support." In English, sense evolved from "place where meat is sold" to "slaughterhouse" (1540s), then figuratively "place of butchery" (1590s), and generally "confusion, mess" (1901, usually in plural).
