Nosferatu (word)

The name "Nosferatu" has been presented as possibly an archaic Hungarian-Romanian word, synonymous with "vampire". However, it was largely popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Western fiction such as Dracula, and the film Nosferatu. A few of the many suggested etymologies of the term are that it is derived from the Romanian Nesuferitu ("the insufferable/repugnant one") or Necuratu ("unclean spirit"), terms typically used in vernacular Romanian to designate Satan (the Devil).

The etymological origins of the word nosferatu are difficult to determine. There is no doubt that it achieved popular currency through Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and its unauthorised cinematic adaptation, Nosferatu (1922). Stoker identified his source for the term as 19th-century British author and speaker Emily Gerard. It is commonly thought that Gerard introduced the word into print in an 1885 magazine article, "Transylvanian Superstitions", and in her travelogue The Land Beyond the Forest ("Transylvania" is Latin for "beyond the forest", literally "across/through the forest"). She merely refers to it as the Romanian word for vampire:

However, the word had already appeared in an 1865 German-language article by Wilhelm Schmidt. Schmidt's article discusses Transylvanian customs and appeared in an Austro-Hungarian magazine, which Gerard could have encountered as a reviewer of German literature living in Austria-Hungary. Schmidt's article also mentions the legendary Scholomance by name, which parallels Gerard's "Transylvanian Superstitions". Schmidt does not identify the language explicitly, but he puts the word nosferatu in a typeface which indicates it to be a language other than German.

Schmidt's description is unambiguous in identifying nosferatu as a "Vampyr".

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