vampire
Pluralvampires
Pluralvampires
- 1A mythological creature, usually undead and human in form, said to feed on the blood or life energy of the living.
The villagers hung garlic over their doors to keep the vampire away.
In many of the old tales, vampires cannot cross running water.
Similarnosferatu
Note
It arrived as news: The London Journal of 1732 reported dead bodies in a Serbian village, which it placed in Hungary, killing people by sucking out their blood, and the spelling vampyre lasted long enough to title Polidori's The Vampyre in 1819.
- 2A person who drains other people's time, energy, money, or other resources.
After an hour with that emotional vampire, I needed a nap.
Her ex-husband turned out to be a financial vampire who left her with nothing but debt.
UsageUsually with a word for what is drained: an emotional vampire, a financial vampire.
Similarleech, parasite, bloodsucker
- 3A person, usually described in jest, with habits linked to vampires, such as avoiding sunlight, staying up all night, or having very pale skin.
Ever since she started working nights, her friends have called her a vampire.
I'm a vampire in summer and wear a hat and sunscreen just to cross the parking lot.
Less common meanings
- 4A bat that feeds on blood, especially the common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus.
The vampire crept along the ground on its folded wings before biting the cow's ankle.
Ranchers in the region lose calves to rabies spread by vampires.
UsageUsually called a vampire bat.
- 5A medical technician who works with patients' blood, especially one who draws it.
Patients on the ward groaned when the vampire arrived with her cart of tubes at dawn.
The lab's vampires drew blood from forty patients before breakfast.
Note
American hospital humor casts whoever comes for your blood as the creature of legend. Patients use the word in complaint, and lab staff use it among themselves for the colleagues who do the sticks, the blood draws, as a technician in Tracie Peterson's Colorado Wings explains: "We have our own language at the lab."
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- A character in Tracie Peterson's Colorado Wings works with patients' blood. en.wiktionary.org
- That fictional technician says the quoted words exactly. en.wiktionary.org
- 6A seductive woman who uses her charms to exploit men.
After years of playing vampires who lured rich men to ruin, the actress begged the studio for a comedy.
In the old melodrama, the heroine's rival is a vampire who charms rich men with her beauty and then leaves them penniless.
UsageToday the short form vamp is more usual for this figure.
Similarvamp, temptress, seductress, siren
Note
The sense belongs to the silent-film era, when Fox cast Theda Bara in vampire roles until the public began to tire of them.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The seductive-woman sense is associated with silent films, and Fox repeatedly cast Theda Bara in such roles. guides.loc.gov
- The public began to tire of Bara in vampire roles. en.wiktionary.org
- 7To drain a person or thing of energy or resources.
- 8An anti-ship missile, especially an incoming hostile one.
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Origin
The word started as a Slavic term, probably Serbo-Croatian vàmpīr, which came from Proto-Slavic *ǫpyrь. German borrowed it as Vampir, French took it from German as vampire, and English took it from French. Oupire is a doublet.