Haint

Full definition of haint

Verb

1. (US) variation 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, hainting%22&hl=en&ei=sspMTv_qFurdiAKgwoRw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBjgy#v=onepage&q=%22hainted|hainting%22&f=false 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, hainting%22&hl=en&ei=tc1MTouWF8PQiAKLuribAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBzhG#v=onepage&q=%22hainted|hainting%22&f=false 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.
• 2003, W. Bruce Wingo, There Grows a Crooked Tree, page 92,“I just don't think it happened that way,” he argued. “Otherwise, the ghost wouldn't still be hainting the tree.”

Noun

1. (US) Ghost.
• 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.
• 2009, Mary Monroe, God Still Don't Like Ugly, page 211'',My dead grandpa's haint floated above my bed one night when I was a young'un and scared me so bad I busted the bedroom door down tryin' to get out that room so fast.

Contraction

1. tense variation of ain't