zombie
nounUK /ˈzɒmbi/ · US /ˈzɑmbi/
Etymology First attested in the 18th century. Partially through Louisiana Creole zombi (“zombie; ghost”), Haitian Creole zonbi (“zombie”), and French zombi (“zombie”). Ultimately from a Bantu language. Compare Kongo nzambi (“god”), zumbi (“fetish”), and Kimbundu nzumbi (“ghost”) (see Portuguese zumbi, Sranan Tongo dyumbi), and Caribbean folklore's jumbie (“a spirit or demon”).
14 senses
- 1A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces…
- 2A dead person, reanimated through some fictional agency…
- 3An apathetic or slow-witted person.
- 4A human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.
- 5Someone or something that should be dead but is not.
- 6An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.
- 7A process or task which has terminated but has not been…
- 8A computer affected by malware which causes it to do…
- 9A cocktail of rum and fruit juices.
- 10A conscripted member of the Canadian military during…
- 11Marijuana, or similar drugs.
- 12A hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a…
- 13A person whose senses and faculties are severely dulled…
- 14A person with a big appetite.
A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his or her own, typically being slow, obedient, and harmless unless directed to be harmful.
- Betsy Connell: I don't know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie? / Dr. Maxwell: A ghost. A living dead. It's also a drink.1943, Curt Siodmak, Ardel Wray, I Walked with a Zombie (motion picture):
- The rumour had started that he was the Zombie or living corpse of Baron Samedi himself, the dreaded Prince of Darkness, and he fostered the story so that now it was accepted through all the lower strata of the negro world.1954, Ian Fleming, “A Visiting-Card”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 21:
1 more example
- The zombies were having fun The party had just begun The guests included Wolf-Man, Dracula, and his son.1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:
A dead person, reanimated through some fictional agency as a fungus, virus, or the like, that has an insatiable desire to eat living humans, typically depicted as aggressive, fast moving, and infectious.
- Ashley: Dad passed on a few years back. He's probably still watching, though. Shepard: He's not a zombie, is he?2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: SSV Normandy:
- The zombies first show up 20 minutes in, after Melanie volunteers herself as the next child to mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night. That’s when we learn that Melanie and her classmates are all “hungries,” or people infected with a toxic fungus that turns them into mindless flesh-eating animals.2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club:
Figuratively An apathetic or slow-witted person.
Figuratively A human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.
- After working for 18 hours on the computer, I was a zombie.
Figuratively Someone or something that should be dead but is not.
- I would advise anyone who does not share its politics — surely the great majority of gay men and lesbians — to shun NOLAG for the anachronistic zombie it is.1982 February 13, Wayne Dynes, “Unnatural”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 29, page 4:
An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A process or task which has terminated but has not been removed from the list of processes, typically because it has an unresponsive parent process.
- 1986, Maurice J. Bach, The Design of the Unix Operating System, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA, See "Process States and Transitions," p. 147. 9. The process executed the exit system call and is in the zombie state. The process no longer exists, but it leaves a record containing an exit code and some timing statistics for its parent process to collect. The zombie state is the final state of a process.
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A computer affected by malware which causes it to do whatever the attacker wants it to do without the user's knowledge.
A cocktail of rum and fruit juices.
- Betsy Connell: I don't know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie? / Dr. Maxwell: A ghost. A living dead. It's also a drink.1943, Curt Siodmak, Ardel Wray, I Walked with a Zombie (motion picture):
- She takes the taxi to the good hotel / Bon marché as far as she can tell / She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell1976, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, “Haitian Divorce”, in The Royal Scam, performed by Steely Dan:
1 more example
- The maitre d’ introduced us and I had a zombie with him. Those zombies are wicked. […] I watched Mario and drank zombies out of a thermos.1976, Harvard Advocate CX:ii, pages 8 and 380
Canada, Derogatory, Historical A conscripted member of the Canadian military during World War II who was assigned to home defence rather than to combat in Europe.
- 1944, "Time for Decision," Time (US edition), 6 Nov., Had the time come to order Canada's home defense draftees—some 70,000 zombies idling at home—to battle overseas?
- Traveling in a fried-out Kombi / On a hippie trail, head full of zombie1980, Colin Hay, Ron Strykert, “Down Under”, performed by Men at Work:
Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences A hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.
Slang A person whose senses and faculties are severely dulled by drug use.
- I'm worried about that guy on the corner, he is a fent zombie.
Philippines, Slang A person with a big appetite.
- Derived terms
73 terms
Aberzombie, antizombie, dezombification, dezombify, phone zombie, smartphone zombie, xanbie, zimbo, zombic, zombically, zombie apocalypse, zombie bank, zombie banker, zombie box, zombie business, zombie car, zombie cell, zombie client, zombie company, zombie computer, zombie crawl, zombie dance, zombie debt, zombie debtor, zombie deer disease, zombie economy, zombie effect, zombie finger, zombie fire, zombie formalism, zombie fungus, zombie government, zombie host, zombie hypothesis, zombieing, zombie institution, zombie knife, zombieless, zombie lie, zombielike, zombie master, zombie mortgage, zombieness, zombie network, zombie organization, zombie out, zombie path, zombiephile, zombiephilia, zombie process, zombie program, zombie S&L, Zombie Simpsons, zombie software, zombie star, zombie state, zombie statistic, zombie strip, zombie system, zombie tag, zombie taxon, zombie theory, zombie thought experiment, zombie urbanism, zombie user, zombie version, zombie walk, zombie world, zombie worm, zombification, zombify, zomboid, zombyish