hant

plural hants

1. ScotlandUSalternativecolloquialchiefly African-American VernacularAlternative form of haunt, haint (“ghost”)

   “[…] Say, Mister, did you ever see a hant?” The gentleman did not understand. “A hant, a ghost, some calls ’em,” explained Jed.

   1907, Harold Bell Wright, chapter I, in The Shepherd of the Hills, New York: A.L. Burt, page 20

   3 more examples

   […] he shivered as though a hant had touched him with its ghostly fingers, for night was near and he was alone in a depth of the swamp where he had never been before.

   1934, Cecile Hulse Matschat, chapter 3, in Suwannee River: Strange Green Land, New York: The Literary Guild of America, page 52

   The term “hant” covers all malevolent and inexplicable sights and sounds. Primarily hants protect buried treasure and linger about ghoulish death spots.

   1967, Richard M. Dorson, “Spirits and Hants”, in American Negro Folktales, Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett, page 213

   Naturally, I believed in hants and ghosts and “thangs.” Having been raised by a super-religious Southern Negro grandmother, it would have been abnormal had I not been superstitious.

   1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 22, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 140

present singular third person hants · participle present hanting · participle past hanted · past hanted

1. UScolloquialchiefly African-American VernacularTo haunt.

1. contractionpronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of hadn’t.