Friday, July 18, 2008

Technically Speaking...

So in discussion, my fiance is quite convinced that the main characteristic of a vampire is that they are immortal (when I brought up the blood aspect he said it was a "given"). So what does vampire actually mean? Good'ol dictionary.com has the answers:

vam•pire ˈvæm paɪər - [vam-pahyuh r] –noun
1. a preternatural being, commonly believed to be a reanimated corpse, that is said to suck the blood of sleeping persons at night.
2. (in Eastern European folklore) a corpse, animated by an undeparted soul or demon, that periodically leaves the grave and disturbs the living, until it is exhumed and impaled or burned.
3. a person who preys ruthlessly upon others; extortionist.
4. a woman who unscrupulously exploits, ruins, or degrades the men she seduces.
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[Origin: 1725–35; (< F) < G Vampir < Serbo-Croatian vàmpīr, alter. of earlier upir (by confusion with doublets such as vȁzdūh, ȕzdūh air (< Slavic vŭ-), and with intrusive nasal, as in dùbrava, dumbrȁva grove); akin to Czech upír, Pol upiór, ORuss upyrĭ, upirĭ, (Russ upýrʾ) < Slavic *u-pirĭ or *ǫ-pirĭ, prob. a deverbal compound with *per- fly, rush (literal meaning variously interpreted) ]


Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006
Arabic: شَبَح الميِّت الذي يجول لإمتصاص الدِّماء
Czech: upír
Danish: vampyr
Dutch: vampier
Estonian: vampiir
Finnish: vampyyri
French: vampire
German: der Vampir
Greek: βρικόλακας
Hungarian: vámpír
Icelandic: vampíra, blóðsuga
Indonesian: vampir
Italian: vampiro
Latvian: vampīrs
Lithuanian: vampyras
Norwegian: vampyr
Polish: wampir
Portuguese (Brazil): vampiro
Portuguese (Portugal): vampiro
Romanian: vampir
Russian: вампир
Slovak: upír
Slovenian: vampir
Spanish: vampiro
Swedish: vampyr
Turkish: vampir

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary, © 2000-2006 K Dictionaries Ltd.

While some definitions do include the undead thing and the blood thing, it also means to prey on others... so there. Makes me wonder though, when there might be a new definition to the dictionary to add the mortal vampire (or vampyre) crowd.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Welsh: Fampir