ha'nt

plural ha'nts

1. Southern USUSalternativeespeciallyAlternative form of haunt, haint (“ghost”)

   Joe-Bob and Nelly swore up and down that the thing that pushed their pick-up into the ditch wasn't a big brown bear, but a spectral ha'nt, most likely Joe-Bob's deceased ex-wife.

present singular third person ha'nts · participle present ha'nting · participle past ha'nted · past ha'nted

1. Southern USUSalternativeespeciallyAlternative form of haunt, haint

   Riley and one of the others were so much afraid of the ghost that “ha’nted” the old house, that they set out straightway for Greenbank, leaving their boats.

   1882 March, Edward Eggleston, “The Hoosier School-boy”, in Mary Mapes Dodge, editor, St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks, volume IX, number 5, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., chapter XVIII (Ghosts), page 360, column 2

   2 more examples

   “[…] Injun Joe’s ghost is round about there, certain.” “No it ain’t, Huck, no it ain’t. It would ha’nt the place where he died—away out at the mouth of the cave—five mile from here.”

   1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXIII, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 259

   It flickered out as he looked. “Ghost lights,” Cal Strenk whispered, awed. “Nobody up there now with Ol’ Pete dead. Ghost lights. That’s what. Ha’nting our ol’ cabin.”

   1943, Brett Halliday [pseudonym; Davis Dresser], Murder Wears a Mummer’s Mask (Midnite Mysteries), New York, N.Y.: Books, Inc., published 1946, page 96