1. A house that is said to be visited by and/or home to ghosts or spirits. We're going to have a séance at the haunted house down the street, to see if we can talk to the spirits.
2. A house decorated to be spooky that serves as an attraction, usually around Halloween. I think the kids are too young to go to a haunted house, honey—I don't want them to have nightmares.Every year at Halloween, my family turns the garage into a haunted house by playing spooky music and hanging cobwebs everywhere.
Fig. [for a bad memory] to recur; for the consequences of a bad decision to affect one negatively later. I never dreamed that a little thing like a traffic ticket could come back to haunt me years later.