[f. SPOOK sb. Cf. MLG. spôken, Du. spoken, G. spuken (dial. spuchen); also WFris. spoekje, NFris. spooke, Sw. spöka, Da. spøge.]
1. trans. To haunt (a person or place).
1883. Olive Schreiner, Afr. Farm, I. ii. She heard a rustling,… and knew it was your father coming to ‘spook’ her.
2. intr. To play the spook; to ‘walk’ as a ghost. Also with it.
1890. Lowell, Fitz Adam’s Story, Poems IV. 206. Yet still the New World spooked it in his veins, A ghost he could not lay with all his pains.
1893. Leland, Mem., I. 10. The ghost went with them, and there it still ‘spooks’ about as of yore.
