Meaning
- mid-point in recovery, treatment, or progress
- the midway point in a progression
- stepping-stone during rehabilitation
- a secure environment for prisoners, drug addicts, and physically or mentally ill to live before they begin to live alone.
- an arrangement between two different and opposing things
- an inn or resting place in a journey
Example Sentences
- Frank has gone into a halfway house after 27 years in prison.
- The social workers are looking for some kind of halfway house for the mentally ill patients after the closure of their current facility was announced.
- The journey was going to take 12 hours, so they booked a halfway house to break the journey.
- The negotiations were suspended, and we all knew that we had only reached a halfway house on this very difficult subject.
- Daisy was sent to a halfway house in Brooklyn, before eventually being set free.
- We stayed halfway house before arriving here.
Origin
This phrase was first recorded between 1685-95.
There is a quaint story of a British public house from the 1600s, formally known as the Old Red Lion Inn. It changed its name to The Halfway House after a visit from a young Princess Victoria in the 1820s. She stopped there to change horses and asked where she was. "Halway there m'am" - came the answer.
