haunt

Etymology

From Middle English haunten (“to reside, inhabit, use, employ”), from Old French hanter (“to inhabit, frequent, resort to”), from Old Northern French hanter (“to go back home, frequent”), from Old Norse heimta (“to bring home, fetch”) or/and from Old English hāmettan (“to bring home; house; cohabit with”); both from Proto-Germanic *haimatjaną (“to house, bring home”), from Proto-Germanic *haimaz (“village, home”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos (“village”). Cognate with Old English hāmettan (“to provide housing to, bring home”); related to Old English hām (“home, village”), Old French hantin (“a stay, a place frequented by”) from the same Germanic source. Another descendant from the French is Dutch hanteren, whence German hantieren, Swedish hantera, Danish håndtere. More at home.

verb

  1. (transitive) To inhabit or to visit frequently (most often used in reference to ghosts).
    A couple of ghosts haunt the old, burnt-down house.
    those cares that haunt the court and town 1713, Jonathan Swift, Imitation of Horace, Book I. Ep. VII
  2. (transitive) To make uneasy, restless.
    The memory of his past failures haunted him.
  3. (transitive) To stalk; to follow.
    The policeman haunted him, following him everywhere.
    Ex's and the oh-oh-oh's, they haunt me / Like ghosts, they want me / To make 'em a-a-all / They won't let go / Ex's and oh's 23 September 2014, Elle King, Dave Bassett, “Ex's & Oh's”, in Love Stuff, performed by Elle King
  4. (intransitive, now rare) To live habitually; to stay, to remain.
  5. (transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To accustom; habituate; make accustomed to.
  6. (transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To practise; to devote oneself to.
  7. (intransitive) To persist in staying or visiting.

noun

  1. A place at which one is regularly found; a habitation or hangout.
    The shopping mall is a popular haunt of the local teenagers in this town.
    I went back the town I used to live and visited all my old haunts.
    It is a great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, … is known by the name of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. 1819, Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, Rip Van Winkle
    Both Jack and Fletcher had graduated the year before, but still took an interest in their old haunts, and patronized the fellows who were not yet through. 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Kitty's Class Day
    Wyoming has been a favorite haunt of paleontologists for the past century ever since westering pioneers reported that many vertebrate fossils were almost lying on the ground. 8 Oct 1984, Timothy Loughran, Natalie Angier, “Science: Striking It Rich in Wyoming”, in Time
    It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. 2018, Michael Coogan, Marc Brettler, Carol Newsom, The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha
  2. (dialect) A ghost.
  3. A lair or feeding place of animals.

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