zombie out

English

WOTD – 12 March 2012

Etymology

First attested in 1981; zombie + out; compare the earlier adjective zombied-out (1976).

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

zombie out (third-person singular simple present zombies out, present participle zombying out or zombieing out, simple past and past participle zombied out)

1. (informal) Become like a zombie in being listless, vacant, and unresponsive.
   • 1981, Contemporary Keyboard VII:i–vi, page unknown

     Ada Richter has compiled [Piano Classics] with the noble idea of helping younger students work on various aspects of technique without having to zombie out on drills and exercises.

   • 1984, Kirkus Reviews, LII:xix-xxiv, page 986:

     After Dennis got killed, my mom just kind of zombied out for a couple of years.

   • 1986, Jerome Charyn, War Cries Over Avenue C, page 271:

     After I’ve been zombied out, will they hurt my dad?

   • 1988, Robert R. McCammon, Stinger, page 321:

     After the ‛copter had crashed on Cobre Road, [Cody] figured he’d zombied out.

   • 1989, Patricia McConnel, Sing Soft, Sing Loud, page 60:

     Black women just seem to do their time different. They sing more, goof around more. They don’t zombie out like the rest of us.

   • 1991, PRISM international, XXX, page 73:

     My man here keeps zombying out.

   • 1993, Martin C. Moore-Ede, The Twenty-Four-Hour Society, page 128:

     The autoworker who zombies out as your car-to-be passes by on the assembly line…contribute[s] to a loss in your personal productivity and sometimes your safety.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:zombie out.

Translations

become listless, vacant and unresponsive

• Finnish: olla muissa maailmoissa, vetäytyä kuoreensa, mennä sekaisin (fi)
• Swedish: zona ut (slang)