English

Adjective

zombic ‎(comparative more zombic, superlative most zombic)

1. relating to zombies
   • 1991, Friedman, C. S., The Madness Season, Daw, ISBN 978-1101174173:

     For a time I wasn't sure of their purpose—neither, it seemed, were they—and I dreaded the possible need for another zombic performance.

   • 1999 November 28, Dennett, Daniel, “The Zombic Hunch: Extinction of an Intuition?”, in Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, Cambridge, London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ISBN 978-0262042253, LCCN 2004048681, OCLC 474825500, LCC B945.D393S94 2005, page 14:

     […] there has been a gradual process of distillation, leaving just about all the reactionaries, for all their disagreements among themselves, united in the conviction that there is a real difference between a conscious person and a perfect zombie–let's call that intuition the Zombic Hunch–leading them to the thesis of Zombism: that the fundamental flaw in any mechanistic theory of consciousness is that it cannot account for this important difference.

   • 2010 November 9, Bojowald, Martin, Once Before Time: A Whole Story of the Universe, Knopf, ISBN 978-0307594259, LCCN 2010015937, LCC QB981.B684 2010:

     The atoms are in a superposition of both possibilities, and the poor cat, too, is hanging on in a zombic combination of life and death.

2. resembling a zombie
   • 1984, Spinrad, Norman, The Void Captain's Tale, page 111:

     As fortune and custom's use would have it, few were the witnesses to my zombic march, and none to see this gaunt-eyed ghost slip inside his Pilot's cabin, though not through any worldly care of mine.

   • 2007 November 6, Gopnik, Adam, Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York, Random House, ISBN 9781400075751:

     She explained to me instantly that it was normal for children to develop intense attachments to pets, even “zombic” ones that did not reciprocate affection, and that a pair of Japanese psychologists, Hatano and Inagaki, had done studies of how children develop intuitive theories of biology by having pets.

   • 2008 May 1, Buslik, Gary, A Grump in Paradise Discovers that Anyplace It's Legal to Carry a Machete is Comedy Just Waiting to Happen, Palo Alto: Travelers' Tales, ISBN 9781932361582, LCCN 2008003087, LCC F2171.3.B87 2008, page 2:

     I've always thought it more sensible than the zombic passivity we associate with Caucasian moviegoing—not unlike the difference between a staid Presbyterian church service and a rip-roaring Baptist get-down.

Derived terms

• zombically