Halt Came From a German Military Command
To halt is to stop. The word entered English as a soldier's order.
To halt is to stop or bring to a stop. It came into English in the 1500s from the German military phrase *halt machen*, to make a stop, at a time when German mercenaries dominated European warfare — the word arrived as a command rather than a description. A separate and older *halt* means lame, from Old English *healt*, and survives in *halting*, meaning hesitant, and in the biblical phrase about the halt and the blind.
- To stop. *Halt the advance.*
- A stop. *Come to a halt.*
- Lame (archaic). *The halt and the blind.*
- Halting — hesitant. *Halting speech.*
- German — *halt machen*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | halt | Halting. |
| Noun | halt | A halt. |
| Past | halted | Halted. |
| Adjective | halting | Halting. |
| German | halten | To hold. |
- The column halted at dusk.Movement.
- Work came to a halt.Noun.
- He spoke in halting English.Hesitant.
German military words in English
- Halt — from *halt machen*, to make a stop
- Plunder — from *plündern*
- Rank and file — translating German formation terms
- Furlough — from Dutch *verlof*, leave
- Landsknecht — the mercenaries who brought much of this vocabulary
German *halt machen*, to make a stop, from *halten*, to hold. The sense of lame is Old English *healt*.
Where does halt come from?
A German military phrase meaning to make a stop, adopted into English in the 1500s when German mercenaries shaped European warfare.
What does halting speech mean?
Hesitant speech. It uses the older word meaning lame, so the speech limps rather than flows.