The Etymology of Haunt
Haunt entered English around 1250 from Old French hanter, meaning to frequent or visit habitually. The French verb appears to be a Germanic loan, probably from a Frankish or Old Norse word built on the same root that gives English home — Proto-Germanic *haimaz, dwelling — and ultimately the Proto-Indo-European root *tkei-, to settle. So the original idea is to make a place one’s home, to keep returning. For its first two centuries in English, haunt simply meant to frequent: a person could haunt a tavern, a hunter could haunt a wood. The ghost sense is later, emerging in the 15th century from a natural extension — a spirit that visits a place persistently is doing exactly what the verb already meant, only after death. By Shakespeare the spectral meaning is dominant. The older neutral sense survives in haunts (the places one frequents) and in the figurative haunting tune or memory — something that returns and will not be dismissed.