revenant

plural revenants

1. Someone who returns from a long absence.

   The undergraduates, our fogey revenant observes, look much as they did.., in outward aspect.

   1895 August 31, Daily News 4/7, as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, volume 8 part 1, published 1914, page 595

   2 more examples

   They would not visit this undesirable revenant with his insolent wealth and discreditable origin.

   1886, Mrs Lynn Linton, Paston Carew viii, as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, volume 8 part 1, published 1914, page 595

   From this moment on, the hero's fate is sealed; an attempt to reestablish himself in human society, though initially successful, inevitably fails. The stone tablet exerts an invincible fascination over the revenant, who becomes so withdrawn that his father implores him: […]

   2008, Andrew Cusack, Wanderer in 19th-Century German Literature, Camden House, →ISBN, page 91

   Synonyms: prodigal, returner

2. A person or thing reborn.

   Sometimes […] semi-identifications could be made on the basis of names. Henry VII's son Arthur was hailed as a revenant in this way.

   2007, John Burrow, A History of Histories, Penguin, published 2009, page 184

   Synonyms: phoenix

3. A supernatural being that returns from the dead; a zombie or ghost.

   Earlier you mentioned a ghost, a revenant with which we may contaminate the Emperor.

   1969, Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah, published 2008, →ISBN, page 19

   3 more examples

   For granting even that Religion were dead; that it had died, half-centuries ago, with unutterable Dubois; or emigrated lately, to Alsace, with Necklace-Cardinal Rohan; or that it now walked as goblin revenant with Bishop Talleyrand of Autun; yet does not the Shadow of Religion, the Cant of Religion, still linger?

   1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)

   And to a revenant who had lived in body after body, died death after death, evanescence could seem like a dream of peace. But the chimaera could ill afford to let soldiers go.

   2011, Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, →ISBN

   If reports from the time are to be believed, 17th-century Poland was awash in revenants—not vampires, exactly, but proto-zombies who harassed the living by drinking their blood or, less disagreeably, stirring up a ruckus in their homes.

   2023 September 5, Franz Lidz, “Undying Dread: A 400-Year-Old Corpse, Locked to Its Grave”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: apparition, spectre

comparative more revenant · superlative most revenant

1. Returning.

   On clear nights when the moon was full, she waited for its shining revenant ghost.

   1988, Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, Random House, published 2008, page 134

   1 more example

   […]which, in turn, led to the first U.S. vessel to be lost that day, as an Avenger touched down near the destroyer USS Porter, which, shortly thereafter, took a torpedo hit, quite possibly from the Avenger's weapon deciding that, well, water immersion must surely mean that it should activate. USS Shaw, the revenant survivor of Pearl Harbor, was then forced to rescue the surviving crew of both the Porter and the aircraft before finishing off the stricken Porter with its guns.

   2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 14:19 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 04 Dec 2022