MEANING
1. To walk slowly or awkwardly with loosely coordinated, dragging steps.
2. Shambles: a slaughterhouse or, figuratively, a scene of extensive slaughter or destruction.
3. Shambles: a badly disorganized situation or a disastrous failure.
Use it for
Words that belong together
- shamble along
- shamble through a doorway
- a shambling gait
On the page
The visitor shambled into the lamplight with one shoe dragging behind him.
He shambled down the passage, stopping at each doorway as if he had forgotten his destination.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- shamble
- Past tense
- shambled
- Past participle
- shambled
- Present participle
- shambling
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- shamble
- Present continuous
- am/is/are shambling
- Present perfect
- have/has shambled
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been shambling
- Past
- shambled
- Past continuous
- was/were shambling
- Past perfect
- had shambled
- Past perfect continuous
- had been shambling
- Future
- will shamble
- Future continuous
- will be shambling
- Future perfect
- will have shambled
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been shambling
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Primary category: horror. Forms: shamble; shambles; shambled; shambled; shambling Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Third-person singular: shambles.
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