Undead is a collective name for
mythological beings that are deceased yet behave as if alive. Undead may be
spiritual, such as
ghosts, or
corporeal, such as
Vampires and
Zombies. Undead are featured in the
legends of most cultures and in many works of
fiction, especially
fantasy and
horror fiction.
Bram Stoker considered the term "The Un-Dead" for the original title for his novel
Dracula, and its use in the novel is mostly responsible for the modern sense of the word. The word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of "alive" or "not dead," for which citations can be found in the
Oxford English Dictionary. Stoker's use of the term refers only to
vampires, and the extension to other types of supernatural beings arose later. Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to supernatural beings which had at one time been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death, but the usage is highly variable.
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