Word.ws English Dictionary

vampyr

vampyr is the alternative form of vampire.

Meaning of vampire

Noun

vampire (plural vampires)

  1. A mythological creature (usually humanoid and undead) said to feed on the blood or life energy of the living.
    • Bram Stoker's novel Dracula built on centuries-old stories of vampires and also encouraged new growth of the mythology.
    Synonyms:
    nosferatu, lamia
  2. (colloquial, humorous, usually) A person with habits traditionally ascribed to (literal) vampires, such as heliophobia, being a night owl, having pale skin, and so on.
    • Near-synonyms: heliophobe, goth
    Synonyms:
    heliophobe, goth
  3. (colloquial, offensive) A person with the medical condition porphyria cutanea tarda, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity and brownish-red stained teeth.
  4. A blood-sucking bat; vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus)
    Synonyms:
    vampire bat
  5. (derogatory, figuratively) A person who drains one's time, energy, money, etc.
    • emotional vampire
  6. (dated) A vamp: a seductive woman who exploits men.
    • "What followed this decision was exactly what we had expected: Mr. Fox, realizing that the public was tiring of Theda Bara in vampire roles, announced that he would star her in a production of Romeo and Juliet," she illustrated.2004, David W. Menefee, The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era, page 4

See all 9 meanings of vampire

Forms of vampyr

pluralvampyrs

Questions about vampyr

What is vampyr the alternative form of?
Vampyr is the alternative form of vampire.

Words near vampyr in the dictionary

  1. vampling
  2. vamps
  3. vamps up
  4. vamptastic
  5. vampy
  6. vampyr
  7. vampyre
  8. vampyrellid
  9. vampyrellids
  10. vampyres
  11. vampyric

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vampyr (page history and authors); vampire (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “vampyr.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vampyr. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.