shambles (chiefly British, informal)
noun

a state of total disorder

Oxford English Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

The history of the word shambles begins innocently enough with the Latin word scamnum, a stool or bench serving as a seat, step, or support for the feet for example. The diminutive scamillum, "low stool," was borrowed by speakers of Old English as sceamol, "stool, bench, table."

The Old English sceamol then evolved to the Middle English shamel (related to the German "Schemel", footstool), which developed the specific meaning of "a place where meat is butchered and sold."

The Middle English compound shamelhouse meant "slaughterhouse," which in Medieval times actually referred to the open-air fish and meat markets. These were unsightly places because the animal remains were thrown into a channel that ran down the centre of the market stalls.

Shamelhouse eventually developed into "shambles" to figuratively describe "a place or scene of bloodshed" (first recorded in 1593).

Our current, more generalized meaning, "a scene or condition of disorder," is first recorded in 1926.

The word enjoyed some special attention back in 2012. At that time, Oxford Dictionaries named omnishambles – first used by Malcolm Tucker in the BBC’s The Thick of It – as its UK Word of the Year.

This coinage later inspired the Twitter hashtag #RomneyShambles, which mocked 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney after his gaffe (Ausrutscher, Fauxpas, Patzer) about London’s Olympics preparations.

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SYNONYMS

chaos, mess, muddle, confusion, disorder, disarray, disorganization, havoc

informal: a dog's dinner (breakfast), a car crash, a shambolic situation, an omnishambles

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like:

"Following the seminar, the conference room was a total SHAMBLES."