Vampire, n. (from: The Imperial Dictionary)
1. A kind of spectral being or ghost still possessing a human body, which according to a superstition existing among the Slavonic and other races
on the lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women
while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werewolves, heretics, and such like outcasts, become vampires, as do the illegitimate offspring of parents themselves illegitimate, and anyone killed by a vampire. On the discovery of a vampire's grave, the body all fresh and ruddy, must be disinterred, thrust through with a white-thorn stake, and burned. 2. A person who preys on others; an extortioner or blood-sucker. 3. A vampire bat.
