zombie

[ˈzɒmbi]

[ˈzɑmbi]

Language▾

German

Persian

Russian

Spanish

zombies - zombie

A zombie is an imaginary creature that's dead but moves around and tries to eat people. You might have seen it in movies or TV shows.

In popular culture, zombies are often used as a way to tell scary stories. They're usually slow-moving and not very smart, so they're not too threatening. In books, movies, and video games, zombies can be the main enemies that heroes have to fight against. Sometimes, zombies are also used as a metaphor for things like overconsumption or mindless crowds. For example, if you think of people rushing to buy something on sale as "zombies" because they're driven by instinct rather than reason, it's a fun way to describe the situation.

How common is "zombie"?

Word zombie is considered rare in modern English.
It appears most frequently in fiction texts and less often in other writings.

Definitions

noun

A snake god or fetish in religions of West Africa and elsewhere.
(voodoo, superstition) A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his/her own.
A deceased person who becomes reanimate to attack the living.
An apathetic person.
A human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.
Example: After working for 18 hours on the computer, I was a zombie.
An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.
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.
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.
A conscripted member of the Canadian military during World War II who was assigned to home defence rather than to combat in Europe.
Marijuana, or similar drugs.
A hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.