SHAMBLES  , a slaughter-

house, a place where butchers kill animals for domestic food, an " abattoir." The word in the singular means properly a bench or stall on which butchers display their meat for sale in a market, and appears in O . Eng. fot-scamel, foot-stool . It represents the La. scamellum, diminutive of scamnum, step, bench; the root is seen in Gr . QKrtIrreev,• to prop, cf . " sceptre." The distinct word " shamble," meaning to walk awkwardly, is to be traced to the O . Du. schampelen, to stumble, an adaptation of O . Fr. escamper, to decamp (Lat. ex, out of, and campus, field) . The same French word has given the English " scamp," a worthless rascal, a rogue, vagabond .