Swift.
Vamp"er (?), n. One who vamps; one who pieces an old thing with
something new; a cobbler.
Vamp"er, v. i. [Cf. Vaunt.] To swagger; to make an ostentatious show.
[Prov. eng. & Scot.] Jamieson.
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. (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.
4. (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.