undead
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English
Etymology
From Middle English undede, equivalent to un- + dead. The first attestation is from around 1400. Usage as a noun is attested from the early 20th century onwards.
Pronunciation
Adjective
undead (not comparable)
- Pertaining to a corpse, though having qualities of life.
- (horror fiction) Being animate, though non-living.
- 2018 November 27, April Wolfe, “Anna And The Apocalypse is a Holiday-horror Cocktail of Singing, Maiming, and Clichés”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 4 November 2019:
- When Anna and John finally break out of their self-centered bubbles to the shock that they must battle to the death an undead neighbor in a giant snowman costume, it plays like a poignant comment on movie teenagers' tendency to indulge their inner lives, ignorant of the world around them.
Translations
being animate, though non-living
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Translations to be checked
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Noun
the undead pl (plural only)
- (horror fiction) Those creatures which are undead; that is, dead yet still animate.
- In the zombie movie, an army of the undead accosted some unsuspecting teenagers.
- 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York: Doubleday & McClure, published 1899, page xxiv. 319:
- "Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him."
- 2006, The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, “Harley Got Devoured by the Undead”, in An Even Scarier Solstice:
- Harley got devoured by the undead / Lurking down in some old wizard's tomb / You can say there's no such thing as zombies / But that's how Harley Warren met his doom
- 2017 July 16, Brandon Nowalk, “Chickens and dragons come home to roost on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:
- It’s an episode of characters returning to their own pasts as different people. They can retrench like Cersei, back on her bullshit, I mean, warpath. Or they can adapt, like The Hound. Neither way necessarily ensures success, but we know the archmaester isn’t unequivocally right. We’ve seen dragons reborn and armies of the undead. I wouldn’t be so sure that Wall will stand forever.
Translations
those creatures which are dead but still animate
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Noun
undead (plural undead or (rare) undeads)
- (horror fiction) A creature that is undead; that is, dead but still animate.
- 1983, Tanith Lee, The Wars of Vis:
- "You will do me a service," the undead said to him.
- 1997, Carol Margaret Davison, Paul Simpson-Housley, Bram Stoker's Dracula: sucking through the century, 1897-1997:
- Innocent VIII lent credibility to the actual existence of undeads, an action that perpetuated, and even stimulated, vampire hysteria.