Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Vampire \Vam"pire\, n. [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. (Zo["o]l.) 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 c[ae]cal appendage
      to the stomach, in which the blood with which they gorge
      themselves is stored.

   4. (Zo["o]l.) 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} (Zo["o]l.), a vampire, 3.

Source : WordNet®

vampire
     n : (folklore) a corpse that rises at night to drink the blood
         of the living [syn: {lamia}]