A zombie is a fictional creature that appears in horror stories, movies, and games: a dead body that somehow continues moving and behaving as if it were alive, though usually in slow, clumsy ways. Zombies typically shuffle around mindlessly, often depicted as trying to attack living people. They've become one of the most popular monsters in modern entertainment, appearing in everything from classic films like Night of the Living Dead to video games like Plants vs. Zombies.

The word originally comes from Haitian folklore, where a zonbi was believed to be a person brought back from the dead through magic. But the zombies we see in movies today are quite different from those original stories. Modern zombies are usually created by some kind of virus or infection that spreads from person to person, turning regular people into mindless creatures.

People sometimes use “zombie” as a metaphor too. You might hear someone say they feel like a zombie after staying up too late: they're walking around but barely aware of what they're doing. Or someone might describe people staring at their phones as “zombies,” moving along without noticing the world around them.

The popularity of zombies in entertainment often reflects people's fears about losing control, facing overwhelming threats, or dealing with disasters that spread quickly through society.