zombie

• zombi
• zomby (rare)
• zumbi (uncommon)

First attested in 1871. From a Bantu language. Compare Kongo nzambi (“god”), zumbi (“fetish”), and Kimbundu nzumbi (“ghost”) (see Portuguese zumbi), and Caribbean folklore's jumbee (“a spirit or demon”). Origin from Spanish sombra (“shadow, phantom”) has also been suggested. May have come through Louisiana Creole [Term?]. See also French zombi (1832).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈzɒmbi/
• (General American) enPR: zŏmʹbē, IPA^(key): /ˈzɑmbi/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒmbi
• Hyphenation: zom‧bie

zombie (plural zombies)

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

   Synonyms: deadhead, ghoul, living dead, walker, (slang) walking dead, zed

   • 1943, Curt Siodmak, Ardel Wray, I Walked with a Zombie (motion picture):

     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.

   • 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:

     The zombies were having fun
     The party had just begun
     The guests included Wolf-Man, Dracula, and his son.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: SSV Normandy:

     Ashley: Dad passed on a few years back. He's probably still watching, though.
     Shepard: He's not a zombie, is he?

   • 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:

     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.

2. (figuratively) An apathetic or slow-witted person. [1936]
3. (figuratively) A human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.

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

4. An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.[1]

   Synonym: intellectual prostitute

5. (computing) 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.[2]
   • 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.

6. (computing) A computer affected by malware which causes it to do whatever the attacker wants it to do without the user's knowledge.
7. A cocktail of rum and fruit juices.
   • 1976, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen (lyrics and music), “Haitian Divorce”, in The Royal Scam, performed by Steely Dan:

     She takes the taxi to the good hotel / Bon marché as far as she can tell / She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell

   • 1976, Harvard Advocate CX:ii, pages 8 and 380:

     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.

8. (Canada, historical, derogatory) A conscripted member of the Canadian military during World War II who was assigned to home defence rather than to combat in Europe.[3]
   • 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?

9. (Australia, slang) Marijuana, or similar drugs.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:marijuana

   • 1980, Colin Hay, Ron Strykert (lyrics and music), “Down Under”, performed by Men at Work:

     Traveling in a fried-out Kombi / On a hippie trail, head full of zombie

10. (philosophy) A hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

    Synonyms: p-zombie, philosophical zombie

• IPA^(key): [ˈzombiː]
• IPA^(key): [ˈzombɪjɛ]

zombie m anim or f or n

1. zombie

   Synonyms: zombík, nemrtvý

when masculine:

when feminine:

when neuter:

Borrowed from English zombie, from a Bantu language.

• IPA^(key): /ˈzɔm.bi/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: zom‧bie

zombie m (plural zombies, diminutive zombietje n)

1. zombie

• smombie

• IPA^(key): /ˈzombi/, [ˈzo̞mbi]

zombie

1. Alternative form of zombi.

compounds

• zombie-tähti (“zombie star”)

• “zombie”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-04

• IPA^(key): /zɔ̃.bi/

• Audio

  (file)

zombie

1. Alternative spelling of zombi
2. feminine singular of zombi

• “zombie”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): ^*/ˈd͡zom.bi/
• Rhymes: -ombi

zombie m or f by sense (invariable)

1. Alternative spelling of zombi

• sombi, såmbi, zombi (nonstandard)

From a Bantu language, via English zombie.

zombie m (definite singular zombien, indefinite plural zombier, definite plural zombiene)

1. a zombie

• “zombie” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /sombi/, /sumbi/

zombie m (definite singular zombien, indefinite plural zombiar, definite plural zombiane)

1. A zombie

• zombi

Unadapted borrowing from English zombie.

• IPA^(key): /ˈzɔm.bi/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔmbi
• Syllabification: zom‧bie

zombie m animal (indeclinable)

1. (voodoo) zombie (person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of their own)

   Synonyms: umarlak, zombiak, żywy trup

   Hypernym: nieumarły

2. (fiction) zombie (deceased person who becomes reanimate to attack the living)

   Synonyms: umarlak, zombiak, żywy trup

   Hypernym: nieumarły

3. zombie film
4. (computing) zombie (computer affected by malware)

• zombie in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• zombie in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Unadapted borrowing from English zombie.

zombie m or f by sense (plural zombies)

1. zombie (the undead)

   Synonyms: morto-vivo, (Brazil) zumbi

Ultimately, from a Bantu language.

• IPA^(key): [ˈzɔmbi̯e]

zombie m anim (genitive singular zombieho, nominative plural zombieovia, genitive plural zombieov, declension pattern of kuli)

1. zombie

   Synonyms: zombi m, zombia f

May also be indeclineable.

• “zombie”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2024

zombie m (plural zombies)

1. Alternative spelling of zombi

Borrowed from English zombie, from a Bantu language.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɔmbɪ/

zombie c

1. zombie

• zombie in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• zombie in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• zombie in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)