haunted

Where it comes from

Haunted usually describes a place visited by ghosts, or a person troubled by a persistent memory. The older verb was less supernatural. Haunt came through French with meanings such as frequent, dwell in, or visit regularly. That sense survives when a café is called someone’s old haunt. The same repeated return explains the darker uses. A ghost haunts a house because it keeps appearing there; a regret haunts a person because it keeps returning to the mind. The supernatural and emotional meanings both preserve the older pattern of repeated presence.

How the meaning developed

A haunting is frightening, but its central action is familiar: something keeps coming back to the same place.