Saturday, May 18, 2013

word of the day: halt

The word of the day is halt:


Etymology:  A Common Germanic adj.: Old English halt, healt = Old Frisian, Old Saxon halt (Middle Dutch halt, hout, Old High German, Middle High German halz, Old Norse haltr (Swedish, Danish halt), Gothic halt-s < Old Germanic *halt-oz.(Show Less)
arch. and literary.
Lame; crippled; limping. (OED)


"When I asked Berman, who is now seventy-eight, to talk with me, he wrote that he was 'very near death' and that he saw no point in meeting: 'All you would discover is a rather halt old man in deteriorating health.  What you most likely would not perceive is such a person who never in his long life intentionally injured anyone.'"

 - Marc Fisher, "The master: a charismatic teacher enthralled his students.  Was he abusing them?", 1 April 2013 The New Yorker

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