halt
/hɔlt//hɒlt/
halt verb: to limp; move with a limping gait.
Verb (1)
halt (third-person singular simple present halts, present participle halting, simple past and past participle halted)
- To 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.c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- 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.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
- To stand in doubt whether to proceed, or what to do; hesitate; be uncertain; linger; delay; mammer.
- How long halt ye between two opinions?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 18:21
- To be lame, faulty, or defective, as in connection with ideas, or in measure, or in versification.
- To waver.
- To falter.
Verb (2)
halt (third-person singular simple present halts, present participle halting, simple past and past participle halted)
- To stop marching.
- Synonyms:
- pause
- To 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.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
- To bring to a stop.
- To cause to discontinue.
- The contract negotiations halted operations for at least a week.
Noun (1)
halt (plural halts)
- A cessation, either temporary or permanent.
- The contract negotiations put a halt to operations.
- Without any halt they marched.1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed...
- A 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).1956 May, D. B. McNeill, “The Sligo, Leitrim & Northern Counties Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 332
Adjective
halt (comparative more halt, superlative most halt)
- Lame, limping.
- It is better for the to goo halt into lyfe, then with ij. fete to be cast into hell […]1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Mark
- Bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 14:21
Noun (2)
halt (plural halts)
Noun (3)
halt (plural halts)
- A 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.2024 June 10, Wikipedia contributors, “Train station”, in English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation
Noun (4) capitalized: HALT
HALT (uncountable)
halt meaning in Malayalam and Indonesian
halt in Malayalam
- to stop either temporarily or permanently
- നിർത്തുക niṟttuka
- to cause something to stop
- നിർത്തുക niṟttuka
halt in Indonesian
- minor railway station
- halte
Examples of halt in a sentence
- The deluge continued for hours, drenching the land and slowing traffic to a halt.
- The meeting came to a grinding halt when the two sides could not agree.
- After the visionary's death, work on his ideas ground to a halt.
Synonyms of halt
Forms of halt
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | halts |
| present participle | halting |
| past participle | halted |
| past | halted |
| Noun | |
| plural | halts |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more halt |
| superlative | most halt |
Origin of halt
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.
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).
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.
Words formed from halt
Phrases with halt
Words that rhyme with halt
Questions about halt
- What does halt mean?
- Halt means to limp; move with a limping gait.
- What is halt in Malayalam?
- Halt in Malayalam is നിർത്തുക (niṟttuka). See Halt meaning in Malayalam.
- What part of speech is halt?
- Halt can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce halt?
- Halt is pronounced /hɒlt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of halt?
- The past tense of halt is halted.
Words near halt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: halt (page history and authors); HALT (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-halt.wav.
Cite this entry: “halt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/halt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.