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.
5.
an actress noted for her roles as an unscrupulous seductress: the vampires of the silent movies.
[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)]
1734, from Fr. vampire or Ger. Vampir (1732, in an account of Hungarian vampires), from Hung. vampir, from O.C.S. opiri (cf. Serb. vampir, Bulg. vapir, Ukrainian uper), said by Slavic linguist Franc Miklošič to be ult. from Kazan Tatar ubyr "witch." An Eastern European creature popularized in Eng. by late 19c. gothic novels, however there are scattered Eng. accounts of night-walking, blood-gorged, plague-spreading undead corpses from as far back as 1196. Applied 1774 by Fr. biologist Buffon to a species of South American blood-sucking bat.
Bat\, n. [Corrupt. from OE. back, backe, balke; cf. Dan. aften-bakke (aften evening), Sw. natt-backa (natt night), Icel. le[eth]r-blaka (le[eth]r leather), Icel. blaka to flutter.] (Zo["o]l.) One of the Cheiroptera, an order of flying mammals, in which the wings are formed by a membrane stretched between the elongated fingers, legs, and tail. The common bats are small and insectivorous. See Cheiroptera and Vampire. Bat tick (Zo["o]l.), a wingless, dipterous insect of the genus Nycteribia, parasitic on bats.
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