Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be āsatanic.ā However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.
VAMPIRE
vampire, lamia
(noun) (folklore) a corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
vampire (plural vampires)
A mythological undead creature said to feed on the blood of the living. [from earlier 18th c.]
Synonyms: nosferatu, lamia, cadaver sanguine
(colloquial) A person with the medical condition systemic lupus erythematosus, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity and brownish-red stained teeth.
A blood-sucking bat; vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) [from later 18th c.]
Synonym: vampire bat
(figurative, derogatory) A person who drains one's time, energy, money, etc.
(dated) A vamp: a seductive woman who exploits men.
(US, slang) A medical technician who works with patients' blood.
Synonyms
• (blood drinker): hemovore, hematophagous
Verb
vampire (third-person singular simple present vampires, present participle vampiring, simple past and past participle vampired)
(transitive, figurative) To drain of energy or resources.
Anagrams
• vampier
Source: Wiktionary
Vam"pire, n. Etym: [F. vampire (cf. It. vampiro, G. & D. vampir), fr. Servian vampir.] [Written also vampyre.]
1. A blood-sucking ghost; a soul of a dead person superstitiously believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, thus causing their death. This superstition is now prevalent in parts of Eastern Europe, and was especially current in Hungary about the year 1730. The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides, and persons who have come to a violent end, or have been cursed by their parents or by the church, Encyc. Brit.
2. Fig.: One who lives by preying on others; an extortioner; a bloodsucker.
3. (Zoƶl.)
Definition: Either one of two or more species of South American blood- sucking bats belonging to the genera Desmodus and Diphylla. These bats are destitute of molar teeth, but have strong, sharp cutting incisors with which they make punctured wounds from which they suck the blood of horses, cattle, and other animals, as well as man, chiefly during sleep. They have a cƦcal appendage to the stomach, in which the blood with which they gorge themselves is stored.
4. (Zoƶl.)
Definition: Any one of several species of harmless tropical American bats of the genus Vampyrus, especially V. spectrum. These bats feed upon insects and fruit, but were formerly erroneously supposed to suck the blood of man and animals. Called also false vampire. Vampire bat (Zoƶl.), a vampire, 3.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
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