I. hȯnt, -ä-, -ȧ- verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Middle English haunten, from Old French hanter, probably of Germanic origin; akin to Old English hāmettan to domicile, Old Norse heimta to bring home, fetch, pull, claim; derivatives from the root of English home
transitive verb
1.
a. : to visit often : linger in the vicinity of (a place) : frequent
loved and haunted the theater — Carlos Baker
knew … what coverts the pheasants haunted — Adrian Bell
b. : to continually seek the company of (a person) : hang around
impostors that haunt the official in foreign ports — Van Wyck Brooks
2.
a. : to have a disquieting or harmful effect on : trouble , molest
the gnawing question … haunted the uneasy royal heart — Francis Hackett
crisis was to haunt her days — Charles Lee
mysterious illness that … would not go until the being it haunted lay dead — Edith Sitwell
icebergs … which drift out to sea to haunt mariners — Glen Jacobsen
b.
(1) : to linger in the consciousness of : recur constantly to
the possibility of the dairy farm haunted her mind — Ellen Glasgow
single lines of poetry often haunt people who cannot trace them to their source — Bennett Cerf
(2) : to reappear continually in : recur constantly in
he returns to a certain type of beautiful uncontemplative woman who has already haunted his poetry — Edmund Wilson
3. : to visit or inhabit as a disembodied spirit
spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted — Charles Dickens
river is haunted by certain malevolent water spirits — J.G.Frazer
intransitive verb
1. : to stay around or persist : linger
likes to haunt around the firehouse
scent that can haunt for a lifetime — Flora Thompson
2. : to appear habitually as a disembodied spirit
not far from … where she haunted appeared for a short time a much more remarkable spirit — W.B.Yeats
II. noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, from haunten, v.
1. now dialect Britain : practice , custom , habit
2. obsolete : an act of frequenting in numbers : concourse
our life, exempt from public haunt , finds tongues in trees — Shakespeare
3.
a. : a place habitually frequented : favorite resort : home
sages in their sequestered haunts — Laurence Binyon
own their own ships and fly them to weekend haunts — Phil Gustafson
quite haunts of beauty — S.P.B.Mais
b.
(1) : the lair or feeding ground of an animal : area where an animal is usually to be found
haunt of the tiger
herring are most plentiful when the water in their favorite haunts is a degree or two warmer than average — J.P.Tully
(2) : the favorite environment of a plant
of the cardinal flower
4. or hant ˈhant, -aa(ə)-, -ai-, -ȧ-, -ā- chiefly dialect : a disembodied spirit : ghost