Generally, I'm very happy to learn something new. Some new word, and its definition, for example. But not today, oh, I learned a new meaning for a word along some other information, but I am by no means happy to learn of any of this (though no regrets to learn it finally). I was reading some more in a book on Victorian and Edwardian servants titled, appropriately, Servants by Lucy Lethbridge. In the 7th Chapter, she is referring to the social classes and how only the poorest of the poor could not afford even a laundry servant or charwoman (meaning odd job woman or chore woman, though there were also boys) though they might be employed as such.
But that's not why I'm writing this, the following sentence is:
Domestic service amongst the working classes is carried on by the immature or the aged, the maimed and the halt, or those who are in some other way handicapped in the service of industry.
I had to look up halt, because I did not understand it in this context. It is being used as a noun (in the quoted sentence), meaning a person who walks with a limp or limping gait. It can also be said of having faulty or defective ideas especially in regards to writing poetic verses.
I mean 'tis apropos during disability awareness month to learn of this, but still unexpected.