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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

halt.

To limp; move with a limping gait.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/hɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔlt//hɑlt/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. To limp; move with a limping gait.

    intransitive · obsolete
  2. To stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do; hesitate; be uncertain; linger; delay; mammer.

    intransitive · obsolete
  3. To be lame, faulty, or defective, as in connection with ideas, or in measure, or in versification.

    intransitive · obsolete
  4. To waver.

    obsolete
  5. To falter.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

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/hɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔlt//hɑlt/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. To stop marching.

    intransitive · obsolete
  2. To stop either temporarily or permanently.

    intransitive · obsolete
  3. To bring to a stop.

    obsolete · transitive
  4. To cause to discontinue.

    obsolete · transitive
    The contract negotiations halted operations for at least a week.
Where this word comes from

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/hɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔlt//hɑlt/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. A cessation, either temporary or permanent.

    obsolete
    The contract negotiations put a halt to operations.
  2. A minor railway station (usually unstaffed) in the United Kingdom.

    obsolete
    The halt itself never achieved much importance, even with workers coming to and from the adjacent works.
Where this word comes from

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).

adj/hɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔlt//hɑlt/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. Lame, limping.

    archaic · obsolete
Where this word comes from

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/hɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔlt//hɑlt/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. Lameness; a limp.

    dated · obsolete
Where this word comes from

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/hɒlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔːlt/Received-Pronunciation/hɔlt//hɑlt/General-American, cot-caught-merger, dialectal
  1. A small railroad station, usually unstaffed or with very few staff, and with few or no facilities.

    Ireland · UK · obsolete
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from French halte. See also Etymology 2.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.