shambolic
/ʃamˈbɒlɪk
/adjective informal, chiefly British
Chaotic, disorganized, or mismanaged: the department’s shambolic accounting...
- The zombies themselves are well-realised in the vein of George A Romero's classic monsters - as Pegg himself says, they're so shambolic and endearingly rubbish that you could spend and hour in a room just dodging one.
- The result is admittedly shambolic at times but leaves the distinct feeling that, rather than listening to a jingle-laden radio show, you've popped round to a friend's house to listen to records that they like and think you might like.
- It could be, perhaps, that the genre is still seen as monolithic and shambolic, Hildas in horn-hats and breastplates.
Synonyms
chaotic, disorganized, muddled, confused, in (total) disarray, at sixes and sevens, unsystematic, haphazard, hit-or-miss, scrappy, fragmented, inefficient
informal all over the place
British informal all over the shop
North American informal all over the map, all over the lot
Derivatives
shambolically
- ‘Football is a shambolically run business,’ he says, ‘run by greedy and vain people who seem to act only in self-interest.’
- Downing Street last night tried to gloss over Lord Butler's scathing, but tactfully phrased verdict on its shambolically informal style of government.
- Sadly, it will be greeted with weary resignation by Swindonians, who have watched the authority lurch shambolically from one crisis to another in recent years.
Origin
1970s: from shambles, probably on the pattern of symbolic.