Other forms: zombies
A zombie is a dead body walking about with no mind in it. Slow, hungry, arms out, coming through the fence in every film you have seen.
The word reached English from Haitian and Louisiana Creole, and in that older belief a zombie is a person whose will has been taken by someone else — not a rotting monster. The film version arrived later and took the word over. In everyday speech you can be a zombie yourself after a bad night: moving, not thinking. Business and computing borrowed it too, for a zombie company kept alive only by borrowed money and a zombie process that has died but still sits in the list. Zombie works as its own adjective: a zombie film, a zombie apocalypse.
1nounzombieA dead body brought back to move and act without a mind of its own.
“The film ends with a crowd of zombies pressing at the door.”
2nounhaitianIn Haitian belief, a person whose will has been taken over and who is made to obey another.
“The book describes how a man was said to have been turned into a zombie.”
3nounexhaustedA person who is exhausted or dazed and barely thinking.
“After the night flight I was a zombie all day.”
4nounkeptSomething kept going in name only, such as a company with no real business.
“Cheap credit kept dozens of zombie firms upright.”
zombie is a creature of folklore.
Zombie came into English in the eighteenth century through Haitian Creole zonbi, Louisiana Creole zombi, and French zombi. Further back it belongs to a Bantu language of west central Africa: compare Kikongo nzambi, 'god', and zumbi, 'fetish', and Kimbundu nzumbi, 'ghost'. The word crossed the Atlantic with the people taken from those places, long before any camera was pointed at it.
18th century. Partially through lou zombi (“zombie; ghost”), ht zonbi (“zombie”), and French zombi (“zombie”). Ultimately from a bnt - language. Compare kg nzambi (“god”), zumbi (“fetish”), and kmb nzumbi (“ghost”) (see Portuguese zumbi, Sranan Tongo dyumbi), and Caribbean folklore's a doublet of jumbie.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Myths & Legends, Fairy Tales & Folklore