Word
shalt
US/ˈʃæɫt/
UK/ʃˈælt/
Definition
v. an old-fashioned way to say 'shall'. You only see this in very old books or religious texts when someone is giving a strong command.
v. the archaic second-person singular form of 'shall'. Used exclusively with the pronoun 'thou' in historical, liturgical, or poetic contexts.
Examples
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“In the old text, the king declares that thou shalt obey the laws of the land.”
“The poet uses 'thou shalt' to evoke a sense of timeless authority, grounding the modern verse in the linguistic traditions of the King James Bible.”
Examples
simple
“Thou shalt not steal.”
contextual
“In the old text, the king declares that thou shalt obey the laws of the land.”
complex
“The poet uses 'thou shalt' to evoke a sense of timeless authority, grounding the modern verse in the linguistic traditions of the King James Bible.”
Usage
Always follows the archaic pronoun 'thou'. Functions as an auxiliary verb to express a command or a future certainty.
Pitfall
You shalt go
Thou shalt go
'Shalt' is only used with the archaic second-person singular pronoun 'thou', never with 'you'.
Etymology
From Middle English schalt, from Old English sċealt, from Proto-West Germanic *skalt. Compare wilt.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/shalt