Meaning & use
haunting
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Beautiful or sad in a way that stays in your mind and is hard to forget.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after a linking verb: a haunting melody; the song was haunting.
Patterns
- a haunting melody
- a haunting image
The haunting melody played in my head all week.
She gave a haunting performance of the old ballad.
The photograph of the empty playground was strangely haunting.
nouncountable
An occurrence of a ghost or spirit appearing repeatedly in a place.
Grammar: Often plural: hauntings were reported.
Patterns
- reports of a haunting
The family reported a haunting in the old farmhouse.
Investigators studied claims of a haunting at the hotel.
Locals tell stories of a haunting in the lighthouse.
adjectivebefore a noun
Continuing to trouble the mind, as a memory or worry that returns again and again.
Grammar: Usually before a noun: a haunting memory.
The accident left him with a haunting memory.
A haunting fear of failure followed her.
The haunting question remained unanswered.
Word forms
| plural | hauntings |
|---|
Common combinations
- haunting melody
- A haunting melody drifted from the open window.
- haunting beauty
- The ruined abbey has a haunting beauty at dusk.
- haunting image
- The film ends on a haunting image of an empty road.
- haunting voice
- Her haunting voice filled the hall.
- haunting memory
- He could not escape the haunting memory of that night.
- deeply haunting
- The novel is deeply haunting and hard to put down.
Synonyms and how they differ
- evocative
- Evocative means bringing memories or feelings to mind, but without haunting's lingering, sad edge.
- poignant
- Poignant stresses a sharp, moving sadness, while haunting stresses that the effect stays with you.
- eerie
- Eerie means strange and a little frightening, which can be haunting but is not always beautiful.
- unforgettable
- Unforgettable can be happy or sad, whereas haunting nearly always has a shadow in it.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: haunting or haunted?
haunting vs haunted
Haunted describes a place or person visited by ghosts or troubled by memories; haunting describes something that causes a lingering feeling.
Practice
The violin solo was so ___ that the audience sat in silence long after it ended.
Choose one answer.
Haunting describes music that lingers in the mind. Hunting and hurting are similar in sound but wrong in meaning, and hasty means hurried.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “haunting”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.