Crossword Genius

Stop royal ultimately entering Balmoral? (4)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

halt

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'stop' is the definition.
(halting is a kind of stopping)

'royal ultimately entering balmoral?' is the wordplay.
'ultimately' indicates one should take the final letters.
'entering' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'balmoral?' becomes 'hat' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The final letter of 'royal' is 'l'.
'l' put within 'hat' is 'HALT'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for halt that I've seen before include "Limp; minor station" , "Stop or pause" , "game" , "Bring to a stop; lame" , "Small railway station" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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