hant

Noun

hant (plural hants)

1. (Scotland, US, colloquial, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Alternative form of haunt, haint (“ghost”)
   • 1907, Harold Bell Wright, chapter I, in The Shepherd of the Hills, New York: A.L. Burt, page 20:

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

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

     […] 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.

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

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

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

     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.

Contraction

hant

1. Pronunciation spelling of hadn’t.

Declension

Derived terms

• drukhan de hénte
• hantafa ?
• hantfala