Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To walk in an awkward, lazy, or unsteady manner, shuffling the feet.
  • noun A shuffling gait.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To slaughter; destine to the shambles.
  • To walk awkwardly and unsteadily, as if with weak knees.
  • noun A footstool.
  • noun A bench; especially, a bench or stall in a market on which goods are exposed for sale. Specifically plural The tables or stalls on or in which butchers expose meat for sale; hence, a fresh-or meat-market.
  • noun plural A slaughter-house; a place of butchery: sometimes treated as a singular.
  • noun In mining. See shammel, 2.
  • noun A shambling walk or gait.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mining) One of a succession of niches or platforms, one above another, to hold ore which is thrown successively from platform to platform, and thus raised to a higher level.
  • noun A place where butcher's meat is sold.
  • noun A place for slaughtering animals for meat.
  • intransitive verb To walk awkwardly and unsteadily, as if the knees were weak; to shuffle along.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To walk while shuffling or dragging the feet.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb walk by dragging one's feet
  • noun walking with a slow dragging motion without lifting your feet

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from obsolete shamble, awkward, ungainly, from Middle English schamil, butcher's table; see shambles.]

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Examples

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  • Demand real ble.

    March 19, 2010