What is "vampire"

False \False\, a. [Compar. Falser; superl. Falsest.] [L. falsus, p. p. of fallere to deceive; cf. OF. faus, fals, F. faux, and AS. fals fraud. See Fail, Fall.]

1. Uttering falsehood; unveracious; given to deceit; dishnest; as, a false witness.

2. Not faithful or loyal, as to obligations, allegiance, vows, etc.; untrue; treacherous; perfidious; as, a false friend, lover, or subject; false to promises.

   I to myself was false, ere thou to me.
   --Milton.

3. Not according with truth or reality; not true; fitted or likely to deceive or disappoint; as, a false statement.

4. Not genuine or real; assumed or designed to deceive; counterfeit; hypocritical; as, false tears; false modesty; false colors; false jewelry.

   False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
   --Shak.

5. Not well founded; not firm or trustworthy; erroneous; as, a false claim; a false conclusion; a false construction in grammar.

   Whose false foundation waves have swept away.
   --Spenser.

6. Not essential or permanent, as parts of a structure which are temporary or supplemental.

7. (Mus.) Not in tune.

   False arch (Arch.), a member having the appearance of an arch, though not of arch construction.

   False attic, an architectural erection above the main cornice, concealing a roof, but not having windows or inclosing rooms.

   False bearing, any bearing which is not directly upon a vertical support; thus, the weight carried by a corbel has a false bearing.

   False cadence, an imperfect or interrupted cadence.

   False conception (Med.), an abnormal conception in which a mole, or misshapen fleshy mass, is produced instead of a properly organized fetus.

   False croup (Med.), a spasmodic affection of the larynx attended with the symptoms of membranous croup, but unassociated with the deposit of a fibrinous membrane.

   False door or False window (Arch.), the representation of a door or window, inserted to complete a series of doors or windows or to give symmetry.

   False fire, a combustible carried by vessels of war, chiefly for signaling, but sometimes burned for the purpose of deceiving an enemy; also, a light on shore for decoying a vessel to destruction.

   False galena. See Blende.

   False imprisonment (Law), the arrest and imprisonment of a person without warrant or cause, or contrary to law; or the unlawful detaining of a person in custody.

   False keel (Naut.), the timber below the main keel, used to serve both as a protection and to increase the shio's lateral resistance.

   False key, a picklock.

   False leg. (Zo["o]l.) See Proleg.

   False membrane (Med.), the fibrinous deposit formed in croup and diphtheria, and resembling in appearance an animal membrane.

   False papers (Naut.), documents carried by a ship giving false representations respecting her cargo, destination, etc., for the purpose of deceiving.

   False passage (Surg.), an unnatural passage leading off from a natural canal, such as the urethra, and produced usually by the unskillful introduction of instruments.

   False personation (Law), the intentional false assumption of the name and personality of another.

   False pretenses (Law), false representations concerning past or present facts and events, for the purpose of defrauding another.

   False rail (Naut.), a thin piece of timber placed on top of the head rail to strengthen it.

   False relation (Mus.), a progression in harmony, in which a certain note in a chord appears in the next chord prefixed by a flat or sharp.

   False return (Law), an untrue return made to a process by the officer to whom it was delivered for execution.

   False ribs (Anat.), the asternal rebs, of which there are five pairs in man.

   False roof (Arch.), the space between the upper ceiling and the roof.
   --Oxford Gloss.

   False token, a false mark or other symbol, used for fraudulent purposes.

   False scorpion (Zo["o]l.), any arachnid of the genus Chelifer. See Book scorpion.

   False tack (Naut.), a coming up into the wind and filling away again on the same tack.

   False vampire (Zo["o]l.), the Vampyrus spectrum of South America, formerly erroneously supposed to have blood-sucking habits; -- called also vampire, and ghost vampire. The genuine blood-sucking bats belong to the genera Desmodus and Diphylla. See Vampire.

   False window. (Arch.) See False door, above.

   False wing. (Zo["o]l.) See Alula, and Bastard wing, under Bastard.

   False works (Civil Engin.), construction works to facilitate the erection of the main work, as scaffolding, bridge centering, etc.

spectral being in a human body who maintains semblance of life by leaving the grave at night to suck the warm blood of the living as they sleep, 1734, from French vampire (18c.) or German Vampir (1732, in an account of Hungarian vampires), from Hungarian vampir, from Old Church Slavonic opiri (cognates: Serbian vampir, Bulgarian vapir, Ukrainian uper), said by Slavic linguist Franc Miklošič to be ultimtely from Kazan Tatar ubyr "witch," but Max Vasmer, an expert in this linguistic area, finds that phonetically doubtful. An Eastern European creature popularized in English by late 19c. gothic novels, however there are scattered English accounts of night-walking, blood-gorged, plague-spreading undead corpses from as far back as 1196. Figurative sense of "person who preys on others" is from 1741. Applied 1774 by French biologist Buffon to a species of South American blood-sucking bat. Related: Vampiric.

n. 1 A mythological undead creature said to feed on the blood of the living. (from earlier 18th c.) 2 (context colloquial English) A person with the medical condition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic%20lupus%20erythematosus, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity and brownish-red stained teeth. 3 A blood-sucking bat; vampire bat (''Desmodus rotundus'') (from later 18th c.)

n. (folklore) a corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living [syn: lamia]

In the fictional world of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel, a vampire is a unique variety of demon that can only exist on the earthly plane by inhabiting and animating a human corpse. In Fray, a Buffy comic book spin-off set about a century in the future, vampires are also called lurks.

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the vampire is an undead creature. A humanoid or monstrous humanoid creature can become a vampire, and looks as it did in life, with pale skin, haunting red eyes, and a feral cast to its features. A new vampire is created when another vampire drains the life out of a living creature.

Vampire is an Arrow suspended swinging roller coaster at Chessington World of Adventures Resort theme park in London, England. It opened in 1990 in the new Transylvania area, and was designed by John Wardley. The ride closed during the 2001 season so it could be modified to use new trains, and reopened in 2002. The ride has a gothic theme, and its station features strong theming, including an animatronic organist.

The Vampire was a jet-propelled car that currently holds the outright British land speed record, driven by Colin Fallows to a mean speed of on July 5, 2000 at Elvington, Yorkshire, England.

Vampire was long and consumed from 7 to 10 UK gallons of fuel per mile. Powered by a Rolls-Royce Orpheus turbojet engine, it could accelerate from standstill to in six seconds, a personal best set at Santa Pod Raceway.

Vampire was originally constructed by Allan 'Bootsie' Herridge, a pioneer British drag racer, as one of a pair of identical match-race jet dragsters in 1981. The sister car "Hellbender" was involved in a crash in 1986 in which Mark Woodley, an experienced dragster driver, was killed.

Vampire crashed in 2006 during shooting of a segment for the television show Top Gear, severely injuring its driver, Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond. Hammond's peak speed was higher than the official British land speed record, recording a top speed of . However, he did not officially break the British record as, according to the rules, two runs in different directions and an independent observer are required. Hammond crashed on his seventh run. Jeremy Clarkson joked that Hammond would have created the record for the fastest crash but would have needed to repeat the crash in the opposite direction.

In December 2007, the damaged vehicle went up for sale as scrap on eBay UK.

Vampire is a vampire-themed card game designed by Reiner Knizia. The goal is to meld sets of vampires from six different suits. The game ends when all cards have been drawn, or a player has melded vampires from all six suits, and the winner is the player with the most points.

Vampires appear throughout Stephen King's fictional multiverse. They appear in the novels 'Salem's Lot, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and The Dark Tower; the short stories " One for the Road", " The Night Flier", " Popsy", and " The Little Sisters of Eluria"; and are mentioned in a number of other stories. Marvel Comics' The Dark Tower: End-World Almanac includes a detailed entry on their categorization.

Vampire is the second full-length album of the Japanese rock band 9mm Parabellum Bullet released on October 10, 2008.

Vampire may also refer to:

Vampire is an automatic theorem prover for first-order classical logic developed in the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester by Andrei Voronkov together with Kryštof Hoder and previously with Alexandre Riazanov. So far it has won the "world cup for theorem provers" (the CADE ATP System Competition) in the most prestigious CNF (MIX) division eleven times (1999, 2001–2010).

Vampires are a race of fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, the term vampire is used loosely to designate mysterious bat-like creatures serving Morgoth and Sauron. Almost nothing is known about them, though Tolkien does name one: Thuringwethil. Sauron also took the shape of a vampire on at least one occasion, while he still had the ability to change his shape. They may have been fallen Maiar as was Sauron. They are mentioned in The Silmarillion. Whether the vampires survived the First Age of Middle-earth is unknown but they are not referenced in Tolkien's later writings.

Tolkien may have just chosen the word "vampire" for its modern connotations of bat-associated monsters. A similar instance is the use of the word werewolf by the same author to denote wolf-like creatures, otherwise possibly unrelated to traditional werewolves. However, in the context of the word "Vampire," Sauron did assume the form of such a creature numerous times. On one occasion, he flew over the forests "dripping blood from his throat." Furthermore, the vampire Thuringwethil, as her name denotes, was a "woman" of shadow.

In the Blade film series and television series, Vampires (Homines nocturnae, Latin: 'Night Human') are an offshoot of humanity descended from Drake (also known as Dracula or Dagon), an ancient Sumerian immortal who was worshiped as a god. There are two biological groups of vampires: those that are born such and those that are turned. "Purebloods" are vampires born of vampiric parents. Vampires who are turned are merely converted from humans by contagion, and are considered a byproduct of vampirism. In the Blade movie and television universe, vampires are depicted as a social pariah; using their financial and political influence to manipulate and influence the human population to suit their needs. They are written as an allegory for drugs, organized crime, and corruption.

Vampire is a 2011 dramatic horror-thriller film that was directed and written by Shunji Iwai. It was first released on January 22, 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival and is the first film he has directed in English. The movie stars Kevin Zegers as a teacher who believes himself to be a blood-drinking vampire.

Vampire is a 1979 television film directed by E. W. Swackhamer and co-written and produced by Steven Bochco.