haint
See also: hain't
English
Etymology 1
Verb
haint (third-person singular simple present haints, present participle hainting, simple past and past participle hainted)
- (US, dialectal) Alternative form of haunt
- 1988, Randy Russell, Janet Barnett, Dead Dan's Shadow on the Wall, in Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina, page 5,
- Looking from juror to juror and seeking out the smug faces of the witnesses who'd testified against him, he repeated his threat. "Those who say I kilt anybody are liars," he proclaimed. "And each of you will be hainted every day for the rest of your life. Then the devil will have ye."
- 2003, Winson Hudson, Derrick Bell, Constance Curry, Mississippi Harmony: Memoirs of a Freedom Fighter, page 17,
- After he killed him, Ed came back and he didn't have no head and he hainted [haunted] Ole Master until he died himself — getting in his way all the time — Ole Ed would be right there with him.
- 1988, Randy Russell, Janet Barnett, Dead Dan's Shadow on the Wall, in Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina, page 5,
Noun
haint (plural haints)
- (US, dialectal) Ghost.
- 1960, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, J. B. Lippincott Co., p. 254.
- "Ain't you scared of haints?"
- 1987, Toni Morrison, Beloved, page 18:
- I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms.
- 2005, "The Four-Legged Haint" by Eulie Rowan, in The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs, Simon and Schuster, p. 106:
- It didn't take long for word to spread that there was a "haint" in the graveyard. A haint is what the old-timers called a ghost.
- 1960, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, J. B. Lippincott Co., p. 254.
Etymology 2
Irish
Welsh
Noun
haint f (plural heintiau)
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