zombie

plural zombies · alternative zombi · alternative zomby · alternative zumbi

1. voodooA 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.

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

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

   2 more examples

   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.

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

   The rumour had started that he was the Zombie or living corpse of Baron Samedi himself, the dreaded Prince of Darkness, and he fostered the story so that now it was accepted through all the lower strata of the negro world.

   1954, Ian Fleming, “A Visiting-Card”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 21

   Synonyms: living dead

2. horrorA 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.

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

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

   1 more example

   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.

   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

   Synonyms: deadhead, walker, walking dead, zed

3. figurativelyAn apathetic or slow-witted person.First known use 1936
4. figurativelyA human being in a state of extreme mental exhaustion.
5. figurativelyA person or entity that is expected to be deceased or defunct, yet continues to exist or persist.

   I walked (I walked, I walked) / Like a zombie in the night / You came (you came, you came) / And you brought me back to life

   1974, Kool & the Gang, “You Don't Have to Change”, in Light of Worlds

   1 more example

   I would advise anyone who does not share its politics — surely the great majority of gay men and lesbians — to shun NOLAG for the anachronistic zombie it is.

   1982 February 13, Wayne Dynes, “Unnatural”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 29, page 4

6. An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.

   Synonyms: intellectual prostitute

7. computingA process or task which has terminated but has not been removed from the list of processes, typically because it has an unresponsive parent process.

   1 more example

   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.

8. computingA computer affected by malware which causes it to do whatever the attacker wants it to do without the user's knowledge.
9. A cocktail of rum and fruit juices.

   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, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen, “Haitian Divorce”, in The Royal Scam, performed by Steely Dan

   2 more examples

   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.

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

   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.

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

10. CanadaderogatoryhistoricalA conscripted member of the Canadian military during World War II who was assigned to home defence rather than to combat in Europe.

    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?

11. AustraliaslangMarijuana, or similar drugs.

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

    1980, Colin Hay, Ron Strykert, “Down Under”, performed by Men at Work

    Synonyms: bhang, benj, boo, broccoli, bud, buddha, cannabis, cheeba

12. human sciencesA hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.

    Few of us would want friends or romantic partners who ghost-walked through events in our lives, seeming to share experiences with us, but in fact feeling nothing, being what philosophers call “zombies.”

    2019, Susan Schneider, Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Princeton University Press, page 41

    Synonyms: p-zombie, philosophical zombie

13. slangA person whose senses and faculties are severely dulled by drug use.

    I'm worried about that guy on the corner, he is a fent zombie.

14. PhilippinesslangA person with a big appetite.