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Allin

halt

verbverbnounadjectivenounnouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//hɒlt//
  • United Kingdom//hɔːlt//
  • United States//hɑlt//
  • Canada//hɒlt//
  • //hɔlt//

To limp; move with a limping gait.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo limp; move with a limping gait.

    Here comes Sir Toby halting — you shall hear more; but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did.

    Do not smile at me that I boast her of, For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise, And make it halt behind her.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do; hesitate; be uncertain; linger; delay; mammer.

    How long halt ye between two opinions?

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo be lame, faulty, or defective, as in connection with ideas, or in measure, or in versification.

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo waver.

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo falter.

Etymology

From Middle English halten, from Old English healtian (“to be lame, walk with a limp”), from Proto-West Germanic *haltōn, related to *halt. English usage in the sense of 'make a halt' is from the noun. Cognate with North Frisian halte, Swedish halta.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo stop marching.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo stop either temporarily or permanently.

    And it was while all were passionately intent upon the pleasing and snake-like progress of their uncle that a young girl in furs, ascending the stairs two at a time, peeped perfunctorily into the nursery as she passed the hallway—and halted amazed.

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo bring to a stop.

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo cause to discontinue.

    The contract negotiations halted operations for at least a week.

Etymology

From Middle French halt, from early modern German halt (“stop!”), imperative of halten (“to hold, to stop”). Doublet of hold (see that entry for more information).

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteA cessation, either temporary or permanent.

    The contract negotiations put a halt to operations.

    Without any halt they marched.

    Because most diesel failures can be traced to electrical faults, minor in themselves but often difficult to pin-point, any unscheduled halt during a trial run is often the signal for the frenzied unfolding of wiring diagrams and the appearance of an impressive array of voltmeters and circuit testers.

  2. 2

    obsoleteA minor railway station (usually unstaffed) in the United Kingdom.

    The halt itself never achieved much importance, even with workers coming to and from the adjacent works.

    The highest point on the line is at milepost 21¾, 367 ft. above sea level. Here there is a halt named Kilmakerrill, after which the line descends to Manorhamilton (24¾ miles).

adjective

  1. 1

    archaicLame, limping.

    It is better for the to goo halt into lyfe, then with ij. fete to be cast into hell […]

    Bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.

Etymology

From Middle English halt, from Old English healt, from Proto-West Germanic *halt, from Proto-Germanic *haltaz (“halt, lame”), from Proto-Indo-European *kol-d-, from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to beat, strike, cut, slash”). Cognate with Danish halt, Swedish halt.

noun

  1. 1

    datedLameness; a limp.

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteA small railroad station, usually unstaffed or with very few staff, and with few or no facilities.

    Halts were normally unstaffed, tickets being sold on the train.

Etymology

Borrowed from French halte. See also Etymology 2.

Forms

plural
halts
comparative
more halt
superlative
most halt
past tense
halted
past participle
halted
present participle
halting
third person singular
halts
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).