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haunting

 - 5 dictionary results

haunt⋅ing

  [hawn-ting, hahn-]
–adjective
1. remaining in the consciousness; not quickly forgotten: haunting music; haunting memories.
–noun
2. the act of a person or thing that haunts; visitation.
Use haunting in a Sentence
Origin:
1275–1325; ME; see haunt, -ing 2 , -ing 1

Related forms:
haunt⋅ing⋅ly, adverb

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. 2010.
Cite This Source Link To haunting
haunt   (hônt, hŏnt)   
v.   haunt·ed, haunt·ing, haunts

v.   tr.

  1. To inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form of a ghost or other supernatural being.

  2. To visit often; frequent: haunted the movie theaters.

  3. To come to the mind of continually; obsess: a riddle that haunted me all morning.

  4. 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.  

  1. A place much frequented.

  2. 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.
haunt·ing   (hôn'tĭng, hŏn'-)   
adj.  Continually recurring to the mind; unforgettable: a haunting melody.
haunt'ing·ly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

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.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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