sb. Also vampyre. [a. F. vampire, ad. Magyar vampir, a word of Slavonic origin occurring in the same form in Russ., Pol., Czech, Serb., and Bulg., with such variants as Bulg. vapir, vepir, Ruthen. vepyr, vopyr, opyr, Russ. upir, upyr, Pol. upior; Miklosich suggests north Turkish uber witch, as a possible source. Cf. G. vampir, vampyr, Da., Sw. vampyr, Du. vampir, It., Sp., Pg. vampiro, mod.L. vampyrus.]
1. A preternatural being of a malignant nature (in the original and usual form of the belief, a reanimated corpse), supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by sucking the blood of sleeping persons; a man or woman abnormally endowed with similar habits.
α. 1732. Newcastle Weekly Courant, 18 March, 2/1. As they observed from these Circumstances, that he was a Vampyre, they according to Custom drove a Stake thro’ his Heart…. All tormented or killed by the Vampyres, become Vampyres when dead.
1734. Trav. three English Gent., in Harl. Misc. (1745), IV. 358. These Vampyres are supposed to be the Bodies of deceased Persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the Graves, in the Night-time, suck the Blood of many of the Living, and thereby destroy them.
1760–2. Goldsm., Cit. W., lxxx. ¶ 8. From a meal he advances to a surfeit, and at last sucks blood like a vampyre.
1819. [Polidori], The Vampyre, p. xx. He had been tormented by a vampyre, but had found a way to rid himself of the evil, by eating some of the earth out of the vampyre’s grave.
1847. Mrs. Kerr, trans. Ranke’s Hist. Servia, iv. 71. Speedy death was the inevitable consequence of such a visitation, and any one who so died became himself a vampyre.
β. 1796. Pegge, Anonym. (1809), 182. The accounts we have of the Vampires of Hungary are most incredible. They are Blood-suckers, that come out of their graves to torment the living.
1813. Byron, Giaour, Note, 38. The freshness of the face, and the wetness of the lip with blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire.
1846. T. Wright, Ess. Mid. Ages, I. ix. 301. Walter Mapes … gives some curious stories of English vampires in the twelfth century.
1886. Sat. Rev., 9 Jan., 55. We would welcome a spectre, a ghoul, or even a vampire gladly, rather than meet [Stevenson’s] Mr. Edward Hyde.
2. transf. A person of a malignant and loathsome character, esp. one who preys ruthlessly upon others; a vile and cruel exactor or extortioner.
1741. C. Forman, Obs. Revol., 11. These are the vampires of the publick, and riflers of the kingdom.
1814. Harriet Shelley, in Lett. Shelley (1909), II. App. 1. 992. In short, the man I once loved is dead. This is a vampire. His character is blasted for ever.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, II. 174. There appeared to be no prospect of shaking off the vampires that had fastened themselves on the princes of Rajputana.
1899. F. T. Bullen, Log Sea-waif, 164. The vampires who supplied them with liquor had somehow obtained a claim upon all their wages.
b. slang. An intolerable bore or tedious person.
1862. B. Taylor, Home & Abroad, III. II. 215. In the German language there is no epithet which exactly translates our word ‘bore,’ or its intensification, ‘vampyre.’
c. Applied to a mosquito.
1864. Geikie, Life Woods, iv. (1874), 58. A sharp prick and the little vampire is drinking your blood.
3. Zool. a. One or other of various bats, chiefly South American, known or popularly believed to be blood-suckers.
α. 1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1824), II. 119. An animal not so formidable, but still more mischievous than these, is the American Vampyre.
1834. Handbk. Nat. Philos., Phys. Geogr., 55/1 (L.U.K.). The vampyres, or blood-sucking bats, nine species of which have been mentioned.
1845. E. Warburton, Crescent & Cross, xvi. (1859), 168. My companion slew fifty-seven Vampyres in the few minutes.
β. 1783. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2), X. 8711/2. The vampyrus, vampire, or Ternate bat, with large canine teeth.
1785. Smellie, Buffon’s Nat. Hist. (1791), V. 283. We shall call it vampire, because it sucks the blood of men and other animals when asleep.
c. 1820. Waterton, Wand. S. Amer., III. (1825), 154. The owls went away of their own accord…. The bats and vampires remained with me.
1839. Darwin, Voy. Nat., ii. (1845), 22. My servant … suddenly put his hand on the beast’s withers, and secured the vampire.
1893. Lydekker, Roy. Nat. Hist., I. 299. The vampires are remarkable for the varied nature of their food.
b. The tarantula spider. rare–1.
1843. Marryat, M. Violet, xliv. The deadly tarantula spider or ‘vampire’ of the prairies.
c. The devil-fish. rare–1.
1867. Chronicle, 5 Oct., 669. This giant of the Cephaloptera is simply a monstrous Ray; and though Sea-Devil and Vampire are assigned to it as trivial names, it … is in no way formidable save from its enormous strength and bulk.
4. A double-leaved trap-door, closing by means of springs, used in theaters to effect a sudden disappearance from the stage.
1881. W. S. Gilbert, Foggerty’s Fairy, I. Where’s my vampire?
1886. Stage Gossip, 69. A ‘vampire’ is a trap used by the sprites, and is cut in the ‘flats,’ and often in the stage—the sprite falling bodily through the trap.
6. attrib. and Comb., as vampire bookseller, corpse, -fanned adj., legend, spell, etc.; vampire bat, sense 3 a; vampire trap, sense 4.
1790. Shaw, Spec. Linn., pl. 8, The *Vampyre Bat. Tailless Bat with the nose plain, and the flying-membrane divided between the thighs.
1807. Phil. Trans., XCVII. 176. The vampyre bat, which will be found to live on vegetables.
1839. Darwin, Voy. Nat., ii. (1845), 22. The Vampire bat is often the cause of much trouble, by biting the horses on their withers.
1875. B. Taylor, Faust, II. iii. iii. Like vampire-bats, they’re squeaking, twittering, humming.
1788. Burns, Poet’s Progress, 29. *Vampyre-booksellers drain him to the heart.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, VIII. x. Through the *vampire corpse He thrust his lance.
1819. [Polidori], The Vampyre, Introd. p. xxiii. The vampyre corse of the Arabian maid Oneiza.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Mithridates, Wks. (Bohn), I. 410. Swing me in the upas boughs, *Vampire-fanned, when I carouse.
1855. Smedley, Occult Sci., 69. Criticism applied to the *Vampire legends by an anonymous writer.
1899. E. J. Chapman, Drama Two Lives, Snake-Witch, 39. That unrest That held him with its *vampire spell.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., II. 175. There is a whole literature of hideous *vampire stories.
1813. Byron, Giaour, Note 37. The *Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant.
1828. Lights & Shades, I. 42. A sort of yellowish-greenish, brownish grey—an unearthly *vampire tinge.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 29 Sept., 4/2. All his disappearances are done by means of the ordinary pantomime *‘vampire’ trap.
1837. A. Tennent, Vis. Glencoe, 49. Some [of the devils] seem’d equipp’d with *vampire wing.
Hence Vampire v. trans., to assail or prey upon after the manner of a vampire. Vampiric a., Vampirish a., of the nature of a vampire.
1832. Jekyll, Corr. (1894), 306. Sotheby will not let poor Sir Walter lie quietly in his grave, but *vampires him with verses that would disgrace even the annuals.
1905. B. Kennedy, Green Sphinx, xxi. The only wealth of the world is the produce coming from the labour of Nature…. And gold insolently vampires this produce.
1872. Camden (SC) Jrnl., 8 Feb., 2/1. The miry slums, into which her carcase, polluted and torn by the *vampiric fangs of her destroyers, had been dragged.
1882. H. Merivale, Faucit of Balliol, II. vi. I’m not sure that you are not a ghost … of some uncomfortable vampiric order.
1832. Morning Post, 3 Dec., 3/2. The ‘Dutch faction,’ at which it places (with a *vampirish motive) the Duke of Wellington as ‘chief.’
1891. A. Lang, Angling Sketches, 57. The Highland fairies are very vampirish.
