zombieism, n.

zombieism
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zombieism_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2021

# zombieismnoun

## Factsheet

### Where does the noun zombieism come from?

Earliest known use

1930s

The earliest known use of the noun zombieism is in the 1930s.

OED's earliest evidence for zombieism is from 1932, in Syracuse (New York) Herald.

### How common is the noun zombieism?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1950 | 0.0005
1960 | 0.0006
1970 | 0.0008
1980 | 0.0009
1990 | 0.0009
2000 | 0.0011
2010 | 0.0013

### Nearby entries

1. Zolaist, n. 1886–
2. Zolaize, v. 1886–
3. Zollinger–Ellison syndrome, n. 1956–
4. Zöllner, n. 1890–
5. zollverein, n. 1843–
6. zolotnik, n. 1783–
7. zombie, n. 1788–
8. zombie apocalypse, n. 1982–
9. zombied, adj. 1972–
10. zombie-esque, adj. 1946–
11. zombieism, n.1932–
12. zombie-like, adj. & adv. 1932–
13. zombie worm, n. 2005–
14. zombification, n. 1968–
15. zombified, adj. 1965–
16. zombify, v. 1950–
17. zombocalypse, n. 2007–
18. zomboid, adj. 1963–
19. zom-com, n. 2004–
20. zomotherapeutic, adj. 1900–
21. zomotherapy, n. 1900–

## Meaning & use

1. 1932–
   See zombie n.
   Stressed as ˈzombieism.
   1. 1932

      > Zombiism..Living Death..A Superstition of Haiti..Robs the Grave! Makes Living Soulless Slaves of the Dead!

      Syracuse (New York) Herald 4 August 11/6 (advertisement)
   2. 2011

      > MTV's ‘Death Valley’, a..new comedy-horror series about an outbreak of zombieism, vampirism and werewolfism in the San Fernando Valley.

      New York Times (National edition) 29 August c1/1
   1. zombieism 1932–
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zombieism typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zombieism is in frequency band 2, which contains words occurring between 0.001 and 0.01 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands

Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.

### Frequency of zombieism, n., 1950–2010

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.

The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.

For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.

Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.

Decade | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
1950 | 0.0005
1960 | 0.0006
1970 | 0.0008
1980 | 0.0009
1990 | 0.0009
2000 | 0.0011
2010 | 0.0013

Originally published as part of the entry for zombie, n.

zombie, n. was revised in September 2021.