zombie

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈzɑmbi/; /ˈzɒmbi/ (UK)^[1]

Etymology

Of Bantu origin.^[2][3][1] The English word came partly through Caribbean creoles,^[4][1] such as Haitian Creole zonbi and Louisiana Creole zonbi.^[2] The sources compare several words of the Kongo and Kimbundu languages: Kimbundu nzumbi or nzúmbe “ghost, departed spirit”,^[4][2][1] Kongo zumbi “fetish”,^[3][5][1] and nzambi “god”.^[3][6][1] Etymonline suggests there may have been two different words, one for the dead and one for figures of authority, which English did not keep apart.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest English sense, recorded in 1788, is “spirits of dead wicked men that torment the living”.^[5] In 1819 Zombi appears as the title of a chief in an Afro-Brazilian setting, said to come directly from Kimbundu nzambi “deity”;^[5] this is also the OED's earliest quotation.^[7] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date the word to about 1871.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The idea of a corpse brought back to life by sorcery, without a soul or will of its own, was described as a Haitian belief by William Seabrook in 1929.^[5] It soon passed to dull, lifeless people: “slow-witted or apathetic person” dates from 1936 according to the OED and Etymonline,^[7][5] and from 1946 according to Barnhart.^[3] In later fiction the zombie is often a corpse reanimated by a virus or fungus, with an insatiable hunger.^[1] The rum cocktail is recorded from 1942.^[7]

Timeline

• 1788 – “spirits of the wicked dead that torment the living”.^[5]
• 1819 – the title of a chief, in Brazil.^[5][7]
• c. 1871 – date given by Barnhart and Merriam-Webster.^[3][2]
• 1929 – “corpse revived by sorcery”, in Seabrook's account of Haiti.^[5]
• 1936 – “dull, slow-witted person”.^[7][5]
• 1942 – a mixed drink of several rums.^[7]
• 1943 – Canadian military slang for a conscript kept on home defence.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. In voodoo belief, a dead body brought back to a mute, will-less kind of life by a supernatural power.
2. In horror fiction, a reanimated corpse that hungers for living flesh.
3. A person who seems listless, mechanical or unresponsive.
4. A tall cocktail of several kinds of rum, liqueur and fruit juice.
5. (computing) A process that has ended but still remains in the process table.

Word family

• zombielike
• zombiism
• zombify

Related words

• voodoo

References

1. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. [1] [2] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. [1] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press