variants or less commonly zombi
Synonyms of zombie
1
a
: a will-less and speechless human (as in voodoo belief and in fictional stories) held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated
b
: the supernatural power that according to voodoo belief may enter into and reanimate a dead body
2
a
: a person held to resemble the so-called walking dead
especially : automaton
b
: a person markedly strange in appearance or behavior
3
: a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice
zombielike adjective
… a morning rush of zombielike office workers, all starved for caffeine and clamoring for cappuccino. Bob Filipczak
zomboid adjective
This is a poetry eerily populated with ghosts and mummies and zomboid creatures who go on living though dead from love. Patrick McGarth

Examples of zombie in a Sentence

If I don't go to bed early I'll be a zombie tomorrow. His students usually sat there in the classroom like zombies.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Others kept up with their reading, digging into books about zombies, dinosaurs and Easter. Lina Ruiz august 2, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2 Aug. 2026 The notion of zombies went back to that Caribbean nation’s days as a European colony, when huge numbers of largely African slaves were brutally disciplined and frequently worked to death by a white-settler minority. Dennis Harvey, Variety, 31 July 2026 Back in April, for example, the zombie site published an article about how, through companies like LexisNexis and Verisk Analytics, automakers quietly funnel driving data to insurance companies. Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism, 30 July 2026 OutRun was created around the concept of a young man who crashes his red Ferrari Testarossa in 1986 and reappears in 2006 as zombie producer, with Kavinsky citing 1980s video games, Miami Vice and the films of Dario Argento as influences. Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 29 July 2026 See All Example Sentences for zombie

Word History

Etymology

Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole zonbi, of Bantu origin; akin to Kimbundu nzúmbe ghost

First Known Use

1928, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler
The first known use of zombie was in 1928

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Zombie.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zombie. Accessed 5 Aug. 2026.

Kids Definition

zombie

noun
zom·​bie
: a person who is believed to have died and been brought back to life without speech or free will
Etymology

Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole zonbi, of Bantu origin

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