English▸ noun
1 a corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.
▪ (in popular fiction) a person or reanimated corpse that has been turned into a creature capable of movement but not of rational thought, which feeds on human flesh:
a world overrun by zombies
a horde of mindless zombies craving brains.
▪ informal a person who is or appears lifeless, apathetic, or completely unresponsive to their surroundings.
▪ Philosophy a hypothetical being that responds to stimulus as a person would but that does not experience consciousness.
▪ a computer controlled by another person without the owner's knowledge and used for sending spam or other illegal or illicit activities.
– ORIGIN late 18th century: via French from Kimbundu nzumbi ‘ghost, spirit’.