Picture an old meat market at closing time. A row of wooden benches, stalls pushed out of line, buckets and scraps where someone left them, and nobody in charge of putting any of it back. That working market was what the word named first, and the state of it at the end of the day is what the word still carries. When English calls a meeting or a bedroom a shambles, that market is the picture being borrowed.
The supplied source traces it from Middle English schamels, the plural of schamel, from Old English sceamol meaning bench or stool, and back to Latin scamnum, a bench. The route runs bench, then butcher's stall, then the whole meat market, then any scene in that state.
本批資料所附的來源說明：來自中古英文 schamels（schamel 的複數），再往前是古英文 sċeamol（長凳、矮凳），源頭是拉丁文 scamnum（板凳）。路線是：板凳 → 肉攤 → 整個肉市 → 任何一個亂成那樣的場面。
Wiktionary entry supplied in this packet: etymology_text on 'shambles' (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:850173424)
Two branches
最早的地方：肉市與肉攤
這一層就是畫面本身，也是後面兩層意思的出發點。
noun · C2
An old word for the place where animals were prepared for meat, and for the row of butchers' stalls or shops that sold it. Modern English almost never uses it this way; you meet it in old writing and in the old names of streets.
屠宰場／肉舖（舊用法）
借來形容眼前的亂
把肉市收攤的畫面搬到別的地方用：先是看得見的亂（房間），再是看不見的亂（制度、計畫）。兩層都保留了原本畫面裡「沒有人在收拾」的味道。
noun · B2
If a room or other place is a shambles, it is very untidy, with things left lying all over it.
亂七八糟（地方）
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
shamblesnoun/ˈʃæmbəlz/
A scene of great disorder or ruin.
A great mess or clutter.
A scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation.
A slaughterhouse.
archaicA butcher's shop.
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。