Hi everybody. Long time no see! Recently I watched To Kill a Mockingbird for the umpteenth time and, as always, watching it led me to pick up the book again and re-read parts of it. It's one of those books that is enjoyable and engaging on first reading but rewards repeated visits as well. Today I came across this passage containing the word hain't:



I had to look up hain't. With the apostrophe you will find it defined as a colloquial contraction of "have not" or "has not," sort of the lesser known sibling of "ain't," I suppose. I googled the terms hain't and mockingbird and came across an online glossary for the book. This defined hain't as a spook or a ghost. Going back and searching for haint (without the apostrophe) confirmed this.

I am a Southerner myself but I never heard this word used to mean a ghost or anything like that. I'm not sure why Harper Lee used the apostrophe in her book. That may simply be a typo limited to particular editions of the book. I'm just curious to know if any of you are familiar with the word, and of course any comments on TKAM are welcome.

haunt, also hant or ha'nt or haint
Chiefly Southern U.S. A ghost or other supernatural being. [AHD4]

I suspect an overly zealous editor (since this was before the advent of spellcheckers)

Dialectically speaking "haint" is phonetically and correctly pronounced in parts of the south for a haunt. A hant is a haint that semantically ain't.
At least in Mississippi.

A hant is a haint that semantically ain't.


Gosh it's good to see you back here!

Yes it does. It was one of the books I read as a child and after that as an adult. As a child, the book was about Scout, Jem and Dill and what they do. As an adult, the book was about the others Mrs. Dubois, Atticus, the townsfolk and what they do.
Edited to add: to the child Boo was a ghost and terrifying and fun; to the adult Boo was a wronged human and inspired empathy.