Haunted

How to spell haunted

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce haunted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does haunted mean?

1. adjectiveBelieved to be visited or inhabited by ghosts or spirits.
2. verbPast tense of haunt: repeatedly troubled, preoccupied, or visited by something or someone.

Haunted in a sentence

• adjective

  The old manor on the hill was rumoured to be haunted for over a century.

• verb

  The memory of the accident haunted her for years afterwards.

• adjective

  Tourists pay extra for a night in the supposedly haunted wing of the hotel.

• verb

  Financial worries haunted him long after the debts were finally paid.

Where does haunted come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows from the verb 'haunt', which English took from the Old French 'hanter', meaning 'to frequent, to visit a place often, or to resort to habitually'. The French verb is generally traced back to a Germanic root connected to 'home' (compare the Old Norse 'heimta', 'to bring home', and the ancestor of the modern word 'home'), so the original idea was simply returning again and again to a familiar spot. English borrowed it around 1300 with that plain sense of frequenting, and for centuries to haunt a tavern just meant to go there often. The spookier meaning, a ghost repeatedly visiting the living, only took hold in the 1500s and was popularised in the theatre, after which 'haunted' settled into its modern ghostly use. The 'au' spelling is the trap, since the vowel sounds nothing like the letters suggest; remembering the link to the everyday verb 'haunt' keeps that 'au' in place.

How the word is built

• haunt (to frequent, to visit repeatedly)
• -ed (past participle / adjective suffix)