haunt

- 6 dictionary results

haunt

[hawnt, hahnt; for 10 also hant]

–verb (used with object)

1.	to visit habitually or appear to frequently as a spirit or ghost: to haunt a house; to haunt a person.

2.	to recur persistently to the consciousness of; remain with: Memories of love haunted him.

3.	to visit frequently; go to often: He haunted the galleries and bars that the artists went to.

4.	to frequent the company of; be often with: He haunted famous men, hoping to gain celebrity for himself.

5.	to disturb or distress; cause to have anxiety; trouble; worry: His youthful escapades came back to haunt him.

–verb (used without object)

6.	to reappear continually as a spirit or ghost.

7.	to visit habitually or regularly.

8.	to remain persistently; loiter; stay; linger.

–noun

9.	Often, haunts. a place frequently visited: to return to one's old haunts.

10.	Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. and North England. a ghost.

Origin:
1200–50; ME haunten < OF hanter to frequent, prob. < ON heimta to lead home, deriv. of heim homewards; see home

Related forms:

haunter, noun

Synonyms:
3. frequent. 5. obsess, beset, vex, plague.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source

Link To haunt

haunt (hônt, hŏnt)

v. haunt·ed, haunt·ing, haunts

v. tr.

To inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form of a ghost or other supernatural being.
To visit often; frequent: haunted the movie theaters.
To come to the mind of continually; obsess: a riddle that haunted me all morning.
To be continually present in; pervade: the melancholy that haunts the composer's music.

v. intr.
To recur or visit often, especially as a ghost.
n.

A place much frequented.
also hant or ha'nt (hānt) or haint (hānt) Chiefly Southern U.S. A ghost or other supernatural being.

[Middle English haunten, to frequent, from Old French hanter; see tkei- in Indo-European roots.]
haunt'er n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

Haunt

Haunt\ (?; 277), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Haunted; p. pr. & vb. n. Haunting.] [F. hanter; of uncertain origin, perh. from an assumed LL. ambitare to go about, fr. L. ambire (see Ambition); or cf. Icel. heimta to demand, regain, akin to heim home (see Home). [root]36.]

1. To frequent; to resort to frequently; to visit pertinaciously or intrusively; to intrude upon.

You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house. --Shak.

Those cares that haunt the court and town. --Swift.

2. To inhabit or frequent as a specter; to visit as a ghost or apparition.

Foul spirits haunt my resting place. --Fairfax.

3. To practice; to devote one's self to. [Obs.]

That other merchandise that men haunt with fraud . . . is cursed. --Chaucer.

Leave honest pleasure, and haunt no good pastime. --Ascham.

4. To accustom; to habituate. [Obs.]

Haunt thyself to pity. --Wyclif.

Haunt

Haunt\, v. i. To persist in staying or visiting.

I've charged thee not to haunt about my doors. --Shak.

Haunt

Haunt\, n. 1. A place to which one frequently resorts; as, drinking saloons are the haunts of tipplers; a den is the haunt of wild beasts.

Note: In Old English the place occupied by any one as a dwelling or in his business was called a haunt.

Note: Often used figuratively.

The household nook, The haunt of all affections pure. --Keble.

The feeble soul, a haunt of fears. --Tennyson.

2. The habit of resorting to a place. [Obs.]

The haunt you have got about the courts. --Arbuthnot.

3. Practice; skill. [Obs.]

Of clothmaking she hadde such an haunt. --Chaucer.

Language Translation for : haunt

Spanish: aparecer en, rondar por,

German: umgehen,

Japanese: 出没する

More Translations »

haunt

c.1230, from O.Fr. hanter "to frequent, resort to, be familiar with" (12c.), probably from O.N. heimta "bring home," from P.Gmc. *khaimat-janan, from *khaimaz- (see home). Sense of a spirit returning to the house where it had lived was perhaps in the P.Gmc., but it was reinforced by Shakespeare's plays, and it is first recorded 1590, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The noun meaning "spirit that haunts a place, ghost" is first recorded 1843, originally in stereotypical U.S. black speech. Haunts (n.) "place or places one frequents" is c.1330, from the verb.

Search another word or see haunt on Thesaurus | Reference

About · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Advertise with Us · Link to Us · NASCAR® · Contact Us