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Haint vs Ahint - What's the difference?

haint | ahint |

As a verb haint

is (us|dialectal).

As a noun haint

is (us|dialectal) ghost.

As a contraction haint

is (lb).

As an adverb ahint is

behind.

As a preposition ahint is

behind.

haint

English

Etymology 1

Verb

(en verb)
  • (US, dialectal)
  • * 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.
  • * 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

    (en noun)
  • (US, dialectal) 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.

    Etymology 2

    Contraction

    (en-cont)
  • (lb)
    • Appalachian English

    ahint

    English

    Adverb

    (-)
  • behind

    • Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • behind
  • *1827 , Allan's Tyneside Songs:
    • ahint the coonter he sat i' the shop
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