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vampire

vampire is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 3 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.Fig.: One who lives by preying on others; an extortioner; a bloodsucker.
  2. 2.(Zoöl.) 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 cæcal appendage to the stomach, in which the blood with which they gorge themselves is stored.
  3. 3.(Zoöl.) 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 (Zoöl.), a vampire, 3.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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