Zombie
mythical undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse, or submitted person or entity
A zombie (Haitian French: zombi; Haitian Creole: zonbi; Kikongo: zumbi) is a legendary undead being created through the reanimation of a cadaver, a corporeal manifestation of the revenant type. In modern popular culture, zombies often appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through magic by a bokor sorcerer. Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi, radiation, gases, infection, diseases, plants, bacteria, viruses, etc.
The English word zombie was first recorded in the 18th century; dictionaries trace its origins to Bantu languages, such as Kimbundu nzumbi 'ghost, spirit'. One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929), which includes a purportedly-true paranormal account of zombies being forced to work on a Haitian sugar plantation.
A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of the zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero's film Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was partly inspired by Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (1954). The word zombie is not used in Night of the Living Dead, but was applied later by fans. Following the release of such zombie films as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985)—the latter of which introduced the concept of zombies that eat brains—as well as Michael Jackson's music video Thriller (1983), the genre waned for some years.
The public source identifies “Zombie” as mythical undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse, or submitted person or entity. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Zombie, mythical and undead.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9406. The Library of Congress control number is sh99001600. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1968, 1954 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zombie” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.