Zombiehood

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The condition of having become a zombie, a mindless undead creature ; the group or mass of such undead creatures considered together
2. The state of being a reanimated corpse with no will of its own ; a whole population of shambling undead taken as one collective
3. Life as a mindless undead being, or the mass of zombies viewed as a single category ; the sum total of such creatures in a horror setting

Etymology: "Zombiehood" is a plain compound: the noun "zombie" with the suffix "-hood," which English has long used to form nouns for a state, condition, or period of being something. Attaching it to "zombie" gives the sense of the condition of being a zombie, the state of undeath. The suffix does the work here. "-hood" comes from Old English "hād," meaning rank, order, or condition, the same element found in "childhood" and "neighborhood." Its job is to turn a noun into an abstract noun naming the state of being that noun, so "zombiehood" follows the same pattern as "parenthood" or "knighthood." The base word carries the rest of the story. "Zombie" itself has a West African origin, traced to languages of the Congo region, and entered English in the early twentieth century, when it described the reanimated dead of Haitian Vodou folklore. Because the base word had acquired its meaning first, "zombiehood" is a comparatively modern formation, built on a term that had already become familiar in English fiction and film.

Synonyms: zombieism