vampire
/vampir/ • noun 1 (in folklore) a corpse supposed to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living. 2 (also vampire bat) a small bat that feeds on blood by piercing the skin with its incisor teeth, found mainly in tropical America. — DERIVATIVES vampiric /vampirrik/ adjective vampirism noun. — ORIGIN Hungarian vampir, perhaps from Turkish uber ‘witch’.
Perform another search of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary
About this dictionary
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English contains 145,000 words, phrases, and definitions.
Find out more about Oxford's range of English dictionaries
Sign up for the AskOxford Word of the Day
Search the Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Search the Concise Dictionary of First Names
| 
