What does Vampire mean?

Definitions for Vampire
ˈvæm paɪərvam·pire

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word Vampire.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. vampire, lamianoun

    (folklore) a corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living

Wiktionary

  1. vampirenoun

    A mythological undead creature said to feed on human blood.

  2. vampirenoun

    A person with the medical condition Systemic lupus erythematosus, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity, brownish-red stained teeth, and increased night vision.

  3. vampirenoun

    A blood-sucking bat; vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus)

Wikipedia

  1. Vampire

    A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been recorded in cultures around the world; the term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures (such as the chupacabra) still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalize this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of "The Vampyre" by the English writer John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend, even though it was published after fellow Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novel Carmilla. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, television shows, and video games. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.

ChatGPT

  1. vampire

    A vampire is a creature from folklore that subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures. Traditionally, vampires are undead beings who rise from their graves during the night to consume the blood of the living for sustenance and power. They are typically depicted as having a variety of supernatural abilities and weaknesses, often with a vulnerability to sunlight. The concept of vampires has been popular in various cultures, especially in European folklore, and has inspired numerous works of fiction.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Vampirenoun

    a blood-sucking ghost; a soul of a dead person superstitiously believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, thus causing their death. This superstition is now prevalent in parts of Eastern Europe, and was especially current in Hungary about the year 1730

  2. Vampirenoun

    fig.: One who lives by preying on others; an extortioner; a bloodsucker

  3. Vampirenoun

    either one of two or more species of South American blood-sucking bats belonging to the genera Desmodus and Diphylla. These bats are destitute of molar teeth, but have strong, sharp cutting incisors with which they make punctured wounds from which they suck the blood of horses, cattle, and other animals, as well as man, chiefly during sleep. They have a caecal appendage to the stomach, in which the blood with which they gorge themselves is stored

  4. Vampirenoun

    any one of several species of harmless tropical American bats of the genus Vampyrus, especially V. spectrum. These bats feed upon insects and fruit, but were formerly erroneously supposed to suck the blood of man and animals. Called also false vampire

  5. Etymology: [F. vampire (cf. It. vampiro, G. & D. vampir), fr. Servian vampir.]

Wikidata

  1. Vampire

    Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person/being. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures, and may go back to "prehistoric times", the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism. While even folkloric vampires of the Balkans and Eastern Europe had a wide range of appearance ranging from nearly human to bloated rotting corpses, it was interpretation of the vampire by the Christian Church and the success of vampire literature, namely John Polidori's 1819 novella The Vampyre that established the archetype of charismatic and sophisticated vampire; it is arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century, inspiring such works as Varney the Vampire and eventually Dracula. The Vampyre was itself based on Lord Byron's unfinished story "Fragment of a Novel", also known as "The Burial: A Fragment", published in 1819.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Vampire

    vam′pīr, n. in eastern Europe, an accursed body which cannot rest in the kindly earth, but nightly leaves its grave to suck the blood of sleeping men: an extortioner.—n. Vam′pire-bat, the name of several species of bats all supposed to suck blood—the real blood-suckers only in Central and South America, attacking cattle, horses, and sometimes human beings asleep.—adj. Vampir′ic.—n. Vam′pirism, the actions of a vampire or the practice of blood-sucking: extortion. [Fr.,—Servian vampir; the word is common in the Slavonic tongues.]

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

  1. Vampire

    the ghost of a dead person accursed, fabled to issue from the grave at night and suck the blood of the living as they sleep, the victims of whom are subject to the same fate; the belief is of Slavonic origin, and common among the Slavs.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of Vampire in Chaldean Numerology is: 9

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of Vampire in Pythagorean Numerology is: 3

Examples of Vampire in a Sentence

  1. E.M. Cioran:

    The Art of Love: knowing how to combine the temperment of a vampire with the discretion of an anemone.

  2. Tori Spelling:

    It was a little bizarre, at first, playing a mother of that age, you always hope, as an actress, that you can go into [ playing someone that age ] gently, first as a mother to a baby, then to a toddler. Only for Lifetime Lesbian Vampire Movie and for James Franco ' would I play a mother of this age.

  3. Charles de LEUSSE:

    Vampire doesn’t see his image. Even less in the holy water. (Vampire ne voit son image. - Encore moins dans l'eau bénite.)

  4. Anna Harrington:

    I'm' comfort shopping' the way that others' comfort eat,' i'm saving and spending the same amounts as before -- I'm lucky that my job is secure. But this past summer, I bought the oddest things I never would have normally bought -- a sunrise alarm clock, pink fuzzy bunny slippers, the entire Buffy the Vampire CD collection, and vintage furniture from the 1970s.

  5. Jessi Davin:

    I almost died from this. I know it's supposed to be funny and s *** t and yeah I get that, but seriously. THIS IS NOT FUNNY. Anorexia is nothing to party about or laugh at. It's real, it's deadly, and should not be marketed as a slutty outfit, want to dress as' Anna Rexia' ? Just go as a Vampire, or a Zombie. Because 1/3 of us are dead.

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Translations for Vampire

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