Undead

How to spell undead

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce undead

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does undead mean?

1. adjectiveDescribing a being that has died but continues to move or act as if alive, such as a vampire or zombie.
2. nounBeings collectively that are dead yet continue to exist or move, treated as a group.

Undead in a sentence

• adjective

  The film features an army of undead soldiers rising from the battlefield.

• noun

  The survivors barricaded the doors against the undead outside.

• adjective

  In the novel, the count becomes an undead creature who shuns daylight.

• noun

  Folklore across many cultures tells of the undead returning to haunt the living.

Where does undead come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a transparent English compound, joining the native prefix un-, meaning 'not', to dead, which descends from the Old English de:ad and ultimately from the same Germanic root that gives us 'die'. While both parts are very old, the compound itself is comparatively modern: it was popularised by Bram Stoker, who in his 1897 novel Dracula wrote of the vampire as one of the 'Un-Dead', a being that has died yet refuses to stay dead. The hyphen Stoker used soon dropped away, leaving the single word we write today. The meaning has broadened in horror fiction to cover zombies, ghouls, and any reanimated corpse, not just vampires. Because it is built from two ordinary English words, the spelling holds no real surprises beyond remembering it is one solid word rather than two.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• dead (from Old English de:ad, no longer living)