VAMPIRE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does vampire mean? 

• VAMPIRE (noun)
  The noun VAMPIRE has 1 sense:

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

  Familiarity information: VAMPIRE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VAMPIRE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

lamia; vampire

Hypernyms ("vampire" is a kind of...):

evil spirit (a spirit tending to cause harm)

Domain category:

folklore (the unwritten lore (stories and proverbs and riddles and songs) of a culture)

 Context examples 

Does not the belief in vampires rest for others—though not, alas! for us—on them?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"She means vampire, not seaweed, but it doesn't matter. It's too warm to be particular about one's parts of speech," murmured Jo.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The site is known for its cache of delicate marine specimens from the Early Jurassic –- such as lobsters and vampire squids with their ink sacs still intact — preserved in slabs of black shale.

(Fossils may need air to form, National Science Foundation)

There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they exist.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind—all of them connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

In fine, let us consider the limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)