Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A snake god of voodoo cults in West Africa, Haiti, and the southern United States.
- n. A supernatural power or spell that according to voodoo belief can enter into and reanimate a corpse.
- n. A corpse revived in this way.
- n. One who looks or behaves like an automaton.
- n. A tall mixed drink made of various rums, liqueur, and fruit juice.
Wiktionary
- n. A snake god or fetish in religions of West Africa and elsewhere.
- n. A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his/her own.
- n. fiction, horror A deceased person who becomes reanimate to attack the living.
- n. figuratively An apathetic person.
- n. figuratively A human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.
- n. computing A process or task which has terminated but was not removed from the list of processes, typically because it has child processes that have not yet terminated.
- n. computing A computer affected by malware which causes it to do whatever the attacker wants it to do without the user's knowledge.
- n. A cocktail of rum and fruit juices.
- n. philosophy A hypothetical person who lacks self awareness.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a god of voodoo cults of African origin worshipped especially in West Indies
- n. a dead body that has been brought back to life by a supernatural force
- n. (voodooism) a spirit or supernatural force that reanimates a dead body
- n. several kinds of rum with fruit juice and usually apricot liqueur
- n. someone who acts or responds in a mechanical or apathetic way
Etymologies
- From Bantu. Compare Kikongo zumbi (fetish), Kimbundu nzambi (god), and Caribbean folklore's jumbee (a spirit or demon). May also be related to sombra. (Wiktionary)
- Caribbean French and English Creole, from Kimbundu -zumbi, ghost, departed spirit. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term zombie company is a throwback to the 1990s when the Japan's asset bubble burst and large corporations avoided bankruptcy by being kept alive with loans from banks that also held their stock.”
“Stuart Gordon says the term zombie originates from the African Congo word zumbi, which means 'enslaved spirit.”
“So when I use the term zombie I am not referring to a specific bank today, but rather the effect this legislation has.”
“Even worse, the term zombie is used to describe people and institutions that should be capable of decisive action at this critical moment.”
“Grahame-Smith prefers to use words such as “undead,” “unmentionables” and “plague stricken” instead; although, the word zombie is peppered throughout.”
“Graham says people shouldn't get caught up on that word nationalization, that we cannot keep funding what he calls zombie banks without the public taking control.”
“It had to be some kind of demon, had to be, because the word her brain came up with, the word zombie, was not possible.”
“And I know you can't comment specifically on any deals but maybe you could just talk about what you're seeing up in your marker right now, on sort of whether there is an increase in sort of what I call zombie banks versus FDIC deals.”
Huntington Bancshares CEO Discusses Q4 2010 Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha
“Oxford Internet Institute decided that what the world really needed was a map of the frequency of the word "zombie" in internet searches around the world.”
“I'm beginning to think that the definition of "zombie" is quickly changing (again), and soon no one will remember that a very necessary part of being a zombie is being, you know, dead.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘zombie’.
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Loanwords
Since English is littered with loanwords, everything could conceivably end up here. But there is a distinct feeling associated with these.. maybe they're young additions to the English language; I ...
iceberg, fjord, firth, abbey, abyss, anorak, apartheid, assassin, avalanche, avocado, balaclava, banana and 104 more...
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The Buzz
The bang, the cannonade,
the bale, the hum.lab situation, media, startup, scientific, gameplay, social, intuitive, creative, collaborative, funding, non-governmental ..., consultant and 124 more...
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people (bad)
nouns for bad people / words that describe bad people.
goto the good people list
( people, character, descriptor, noun )culprit, perpetrator, tormentor, swindler, bamboozler, nincompoop, thief, liar, back stabber, vandal, burglar, cheater and 85 more...
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identifiers
species, sex, age bracket, occupation, hobby .. etc.
man, woman, human being, student, zombie, artist, octopus, race driver, scientist, algorithmist, mathematician, child and 59 more...
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Cocktails: Drink Up. The Night is Young!
Have some liquor to help the orange juice go down.
zombie, yellow bird, white russian, whiskey sour, vodka tonic, tom collins, tom and jerry, toasted almond, tequila sunrise, stinger, spritzer, sloe gin fizz and 62 more...
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But technically it means...
Words with technical senses resembling but not wholly reflective of vernacular usage, often because of a need for greater precision in some discipline or other.
planet, twilight, substance, zombie, sublime, type, token, natural, life, epidemic, evolution, likelihood and 12 more...
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A List of Mythical Proportions
All of these things exist, I swear!
unicorn, pegasus, cyclops, yeti, abominable snowman, bigfoot, phoenix, thunderbird, sea serpent, ogre, grue, troll and 138 more...
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Tech Terms
Surfing the cyber lexicon.
deprecated, null, defunct, zombie, reap
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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wanderstar's Words
superlative, mulish, mumps, catatonic, aquiline, clandestine, phantasmagoria, chryselephantine, microfiche, mutineer, reprobate, ruthless and 312 more...
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Malachi_Constant's Words
triumverate, pandemic, parsnip, delineate, zamboni, parka, laser, swoop, malevolent, benevolent, fracas, tipsy and 372 more...
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elvesoncrack's Words
lachrymose, blustering, fjord, chihuahua, chiffon, catalytic, stile, gefilte, prosh, thwart, ralph, ickle and 379 more...
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Chainlink's Words
hat, opalescent, opal, emerald, sapphire, scythe, carnival, calliope, brilliant, awesome, feather, fantastic and 268 more...
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Fictional beasties
elf, gnome, dwarf, sprite, troll, fairy, nymph, imp, brownie, sasquatch, yeti, wookiee and 574 more...
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kant's Words
mandrágora, doppelganger, sinestesia, baladí, adriático, chanson, correveidile, angster, dèja vu, otredad, grasshopper, republic and 1074 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for zombie.
PossibleUnderscore Ha! I notice no one has had to use it yet--(maybe I can change that fact...) Jul 28, 2009
bilby Be prepared. Jun 8, 2009
bilby "Severed sets up a confrontation between eco-activists and loggers that turns both ghoulish and political. In deepest, darkest British Columbia, eco-warriors, loggers and company men are forced to band together for survival as the forest starts to crawl with zombies wearing lumberjack shirts. After the logging company infected trees with a hormone called GX1134, which promoted growth and increased profits, they discover there's an unfortunate side effect when the genetically mutated tree sap comes into contact with humans, and turns them into zombies."
- movie review, 'Severed', ebroadcast.com.au, 1 Dec 2008. Dec 1, 2008
oroboros Zombies are the top of the food chain!! Nov 24, 2008
chained_bear Also, a misspelled ghost word--a word on 0 lists. May or may not have comments. See also casper and conversation on features. Nov 22, 2007
abraxaszugzwang http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=915 Jan 31, 2007
lampbane "In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey. What's in your head,
In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?" Jan 9, 2007