shamble

verb

sham·​ble ˈsham-bəl How to pronounce shamble (audio)
shambled; shambling ˈsham-b(ə-)liŋ How to pronounce shamble (audio)

intransitive verb

: to walk awkwardly with dragging feet : shuffle
shamble noun

Examples of shamble in a Sentence

He shambled into the room. disconsolate and exhausted after losing the match, the wrestler shambled toward the locker room
Recent Examples on the Web To this end, the new generation of morticians (another neologism meant to conjure expertise) bought up shambling Victorian mansions in swish residential districts and invented a new form of comfort. Dan Piepenbring, Harper's Magazine, 2 Feb. 2024 Movies may have led you to believe heroic astronauts can slip on a space suit and leap to the rescue, but under current designs this would result in Brad Pitt clutching his joints and shambling to a very painful (if handsome) death. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, Popular Science, 8 Nov. 2023 Ray Fisher incarnates, with natural majesty, the brawn and bravado of Muhammad Ali; Edwin Lee Gibson shambles and stammers as Stepin Fetchit while retaining the dignity of a canny survivor. Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2023 That baggy, shambling gang of tuneless no-hopers swept along on the glassy-eyed tide of post-acid house euphoria? Jonathan Bernstein, SPIN, 7 June 2023 The franchise's latest spinoff, The Walking Dead: Dead City, which sics its shambling hordes on New York City, premieres this summer. Christian Holub, EW.com, 11 May 2023 With zombie stories saturating popular culture, the lore in TV and film began to expand beyond the simple trope of shambling brain eaters. Matt Hongoltz-Hetling, Popular Science, 4 May 2023 Since the nine-episode first season tackled the main events of 2013's The Last of Us video game and the Left Behind DLC, a 2014 side story players could download separately, season 2 will begin to translate the events of The Last of Us Part II, the sequel that shambled onto the PlayStation in 2020. Nick Romano, EW.com, 13 Mar. 2023 Past games, including the successful remakes of the second and third sequels, featured brainless zombies and other monsters shambling and shuffling toward the player. Gene Park, Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shamble.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

shamble bowed, malformed

First Known Use

1717, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of shamble was in 1717

Dictionary Entries Near shamble

Cite this Entry

“Shamble.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shamble. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

shamble

verb
sham·​ble ˈsham-bəl How to pronounce shamble (audio)
shambled; shambling -b(ə-)liŋ How to pronounce shamble (audio)
: to walk awkwardly with dragging feet : shuffle
shamble noun

More from Merriam-Webster on shamble

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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