halting speech
Words coming slowly
Halting speech is speech marked by frequent pauses, hesitations, or interruptions in flow.
It may result from uncertainty, emotional distress, or neurological conditions affecting language production.
Someone speaking haltingly struggles to maintain smooth delivery: In halting speech, she described what had happened.
The phrase often suggests difficulty finding words or composing thoughts.
- stutterInvoluntary speech repetition
- stammerSpeak with involuntary repetitions
- hesitantSlow to act
- falteringBecoming unsteady or weak
- stumblingWalking clumsily, almost falling
tongue-tied · lost for words · at a loss · mumbling · pause · catching breath · nervous · stage fright · awkward · broken · choppy · uncertain · trembling · searching · groping · inarticulate · fumbling · jerky
- speech patternstempo, articulation, pace, rhythm, enunciation
- speech problemsstuttering, stammering, slurring, mumbling, slurred words
- aphasia symptomsanomia, neologisms, neologism, circumlocution, perseveration
- disfluencystutter, stammer, stammering, stuttering, disfluency
- speechtalk, diction, conversation, pronunciation, articulation