zombie

CEFRA2

/ˈzɒmbi/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A dead person believed to have been brought back to life.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    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.

Examples

  • After my husband's death I walked around like a zombie.

  • The children dressed up as a scary zombie for the Halloween party.

At a glance

Sits at A2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. An apathetic or slow-witted person.

  2. A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his or her own.

  3. 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.

More examples

In context

  • The zombie apocalypse is nigh!

  • After working for 18 hours on the computer, I was a zombie.

  • 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.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

In the horror movie, a blank slowly walked toward the living humans with its arms outstretched.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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”).