French word

zombie

Pronunciation

IPA/zɔ̃bi/

Meaning

  • masculine nounzombie

Example

J'ai vu un zombie hier soir.

I saw a zombie last night.

Illustration for zombie (zombie)

More examples

Pour Halloween, ils se sont déguisés en zombies.

For Halloween, they dressed up as zombies.

Core concept

A dead body brought back to motion, driven by instinct rather than thought or awareness.

Common phrases

  • se déguiser en zombies

    dress up as zombies

  • film de zombie

    zombie movie

  • personnage zombie

    zombie character

Similar words

fantôme: A spirit said to lack a body and appear or vanish from sight.
vampire: An undead legendary being that survives by drinking the blood of people or animals.
cadavre: The dead body of a person or animal whose life functions have completely stopped.
squelette: The bones of a person or animal after the flesh has fallen away.

Definition in French

Créature fictive, cadavre réanimé privé de conscience et agissant surtout par automatismes ou pulsions.

Word origin

The French noun zombie is a borrowing ultimately linked to Haitian Creole zombi, with the word's deeper African origin remaining uncertain.

Usage tips

  • French zombie can also describe an extremely tired or unresponsive person in informal figurative use, as in être comme un zombie.

Opposites

  • mortdead personnoun
  • être vivantliving personnoun

Word lists with this word