1. in West African and Haitian folk belief, a corpse that is reanimated by witchcraft and used as a slave. Zombie legends in Haitian voodoo were long surmised to have been based on a real practice of keeping living persons in a trancelike state by means of certain powerful drugs; this notion is now regarded as discredited. Zombies continue to captivate the imagination, however, particularly as menacing, living-dead stalkers in horror movies and other pop-culture genres.

2. in philosophy of mind, the hypothetical being at the heart of the zombie argument. Also called philosophical zombie (p-zombie). See also zimbo.

3. a colloquial term for the drug PCP.