Granny said to me, "That's my grand-daughter. Her long-legged grand-daughter was standing at the office window. I'm old enough to have white hair as well, so when I sat down she said, "Excuse me for asking, but how old are you?" I politely told her and she said, "You're a youngster I'm eighty-nine." She was no mental slouch. Heaven and the lady I sat next to in a waiting room recently. (And if I'm of "a younger generation" than you, Smokey, heaven knows how old you are!) : Whoops, sorry - I only meant that the noun meaning "lame people" and the verb meaning "to limp" were more-or-less obsolete - not the "stop" senses. So some might say they're not even the same word, just homphones/homographs. Etymonline shows that halt (to limp) comes from an Old English word from a Germanic root, while we re-adopted halt (to stop) from French or Italian at a later time. Even Victoria's haltingly can be taken as "with stops" rather than "limpingly". Easton M.A., D.D. It indicates a lame, uncertain gait, going now in one direction, now in another, in the frenzy of wild leaping. It is the meaning of lame or limping that is obsolete. The Hebrew verb rendered 'halt' is used of the irregular dance ('leaped upon') around the altar (ver. Those who were oppressed, sick, lame, or poor were likely to be. : : Yes, the "stop" meaning of halt is perfectly common. He encouraged his faithful to halt and relieve the suffering of others, and to take it. It's possible that for a younger generation, like that of Victoria, the word is as old-fashioned as sentinels saying, "Halt, who goes there?" : : : I vote for "less obsolete." It may be my imagination that the word is part of the living tongue, even if only in specialized (military?) or literary uses ("The bus came to a halt," "he had to halt his monologue to drink some water"). : : : : Although "halt" as a noun or a verb is more or less obsolete, we do still sometimes say "halting" and "haltingly".
Luke xiii.21, "The poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind". I suspect it is a misremembering of the various occurrences of "halt" in this sense in the King James Bible, e.g. : : : : It's a tautology ("halt" in this phrase being a synonym of "lame"). It seems to be the only real use of "halt" with this meaning in modern usage. : : : : : I know the meaning, but have been unable to find the origin. In Reply to: The halt and the lame posted by Victoria S Dennis on Octoat 17:12:
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