Halter
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A bitless headpiece of rope or straps, placed on the head of animals such as cattle or horses to lead or tie them.
- 2 One who halts or limps; a cripple.
- 3 Alternative form of haltere. alt-of, alternative
- 4 either of the rudimentary hind wings of dipterous insects; used for maintaining equilibrium during flight wordnet
- 5 A rope with a noose, for hanging criminals; the gallows rope.
"And Crates said, that love was cured with hunger, if not by time; and in him that liked not these two meanes, by the halter [translating hart]."
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 a woman's top that fastens behind the back and neck leaving the back and arms uncovered wordnet
- 7 A halter top.
- 8 rope or canvas headgear for a horse, with a rope for leading wordnet
- 9 a rope that is used by a hangman to execute persons who have been condemned to death by hanging wordnet
- 1 To place a halter on. transitive
"What do you mean, you didn't halter the horses when we stopped for the night?"
- 2 prevent the progress or free movement of wordnet
- 3 hang with a halter wordnet
Example
More examples"Tom pulled on the halter in order to guide the horse to the stables."
Etymology
From Middle English halter, helter, helfter, from Old English hælfter, hælftre (“halter”), from Proto-West Germanic *halftrijā (“harness”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to cut”), equivalent to half- + -ter. Cognate with Scots helter (“halter”), Dutch halfter, halster (“halter”), Low German halfter, helchter, halter (“halter”), German Halfter (“halter, holster”).
From halt + -er.
Related phrases
More for "halter"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.