Glossary

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Amsterdam: Capital of the Netherlands; its university was a respected centre of medicine and science in the 1890s.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:IX X XI XIII XIV XV XVI
Arminius: Ármin Vámbéry, a Hungarian scholar who gives Van Helsing the Count's history.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVIII
Arpad: Árpád, the chieftain who led the Magyars into the Carpathian Basin.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III
Attila: Attila the Hun, whom the Count names among his ancestors.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III
bat: Vampire bats, named after the folklore vampire, live in South America. Quincey mentions them.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VIII IX XI XII XIV XVIII XXI XXV XXVI
Bermondsey: A district south of the Thames where one of the Count's lairs is hidden.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XX XXII XXIII
Bistritz: Bistrița, a town in Transylvania (now Romania) where Harker spends his last night before the castle.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III IV XXVI XXVII
Bistritza: The Bistrița river, which the hunters follow toward the castle.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXVI
Black Sea: An inland sea linked to the Mediterranean only through the Bosphorus, controlled by the Ottomans in 1897.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXIV XXV XXVI
blue flame: In Romanian folklore, blue flames on St. George's Eve marked buried treasure.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II XVI
Borgo Pass: The Tihuța Pass, which links Transylvania and Bukovina.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I IV XXVI XXVII
bowie knife: A large fighting knife named after Jim Bowie, which Quincey carries.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXVII
Bradshaw: Bradshaw's Railway Guide, the national timetable. Mina knows it by heart.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:II
Buda-Pesth: Old spelling of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Buda and Pest were joined as one city in 1873.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III VIII IX XVIII XXIII
Buda-Pesth University: Eötvös Loránd University, where Arminius taught.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVIII
Bukovina: A historical region north of Transylvania.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I IV XXVII
Burdon-Sanderson: John Burdon-Sanderson, a leading Victorian physiologist.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VI
calèche: A light, low-wheeled carriage with a folding hood.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II
Carfax: The Count's estate. The name comes from the French 'quatre faces' (four faces).; Wiktionary →· Chapters:II VIII XI XVII XVIII XX XXI XXII XXIII XXVII
Carpathians: A mountain range in Central and Eastern Europe that curves through Romania.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II XXVI XXVII
Charcot: Jean-Martin Charcot, a French neurologist famous for his studies of hysteria and hypnosis.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIV
chloral: Chloral hydrate, a common Victorian sedative.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VIII XIX
crucifix: A cross bearing the figure of Christ, which protects Harker from the Count.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II III VII XIII XV XVI XVIII XIX XXI XXIII
Danube: Europe's second-longest river.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III XXIV XXV XXVI
Demeter: The Russian schooner that carries the Count to England. It was named after the Greek harvest goddess.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VII XVII
Doolittle: Doolittle's Wharf, the fictional London dock where the Czarina Catherine loads.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXIV
Dracula: Stoker took the name from Vlad III Dracula, 15th-century voivode of Wallachia.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II III IV VI XVII XVIII XX XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII
Ellen Terry: The great actress of Irving's Lyceum company, a friend of Stoker's.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIII
evil eye: A malevolent glare believed to cause harm. The villagers make signs against it as Harker leaves.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I XXVI XXVII
Exeter: A cathedral city in Devon and the home of Harker's employer, Mr. Hawkins.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:II III VIII XII XIII XIV XVII XX XXV
Ferrier: David Ferrier, a Scottish neurologist who mapped brain functions.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VI
Galatz: Galați, a Romanian port on the Danube.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXV XXVI
garlic: A traditional protection against vampires throughout Eastern European folklore.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III X XI XII XIII XV XVI XVIII XIX XXVII
Hamlet: Characters quote Shakespeare's Hamlet often; Stoker managed Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III
Hampstead: A hilly village-suburb in north London near Lucy's tomb.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIII XIV XV
Hampstead Heath: A large, wild park in north London where the 'Bloofer Lady' stalks children.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIII XV
Hermanstadt: Sibiu, a city in Transylvania.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVIII
Host: Consecrated communion wafers, which Van Helsing uses to seal the Count's earth-boxes.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVI XXII
hypnotism: Van Helsing hypnotises Mina to reach the Count's mind. Charcot's work made the practice famous.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIV XXIV XXVII
impletata: Stuffed aubergine. Stoker took the word from his notes on Romanian food.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Kettleness: A headland north of Whitby near where the Demeter appears.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VI VII VIII
Kingstead: A fictional churchyard near Hampstead where Lucy is buried. It is thought to be modelled on Highgate Cemetery.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XV
Klausenburgh: Cluj-Napoca, a historic city in Transylvania.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
laudanum: A tincture of opium in alcohol, the standard Victorian painkiller and sleeping draught.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XI XII
leiter-wagon: A long ladder-sided farm wagon used in Central Europe.; Wiktionary →· Chapters:I XXVII
Lloyd’s: Lloyd's of London, the shipping insurance market, which records vessel movements.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXIV XXV
Lombroso: Cesare Lombroso, a criminologist who claimed that criminals were a recognisable physical 'type'.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXV
Lord Godalming: Arthur Holmwood's title once he inherits his father's peerage.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VI XIII XIV XV XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII
lunatic asylum: Seward runs a private asylum, typical of Victorian psychiatric care.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:II V XVII XVIII
Magyars: Hungarians, who arrived in the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III
mamaliga: Mămăligă, a porridge made from yellow maize meal and a Romanian staple.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Mile End: A crowded working-class East End district, notorious in the 1880s as near the Jack the Ripper murders.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XX XXII XXIII
Mohács: The Battle of Mohács (1526), where the Ottomans crushed the Hungarian army.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III
morphia: Morphine, often prescribed in Victorian medicine.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:X XII
mountain ash: Rowan, long used as a charm against witches and evil spirits.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III
Munich: Capital of Bavaria. Stoker's deleted opening chapter, later published as 'Dracula's Guest', is set there.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Nordau: Max Nordau, author of the 1892 book Degeneration.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXV
nosferatu: Stoker claims it is a Romanian word for vampire. Its real origin is uncertain.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVI XVIII
Ordog: Ördög, Hungarian for the Devil.; Wiktionary →· Chapters:I
Pall Mall Gazette: A London evening paper that reports the escaped wolf.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XI XVII
paprika hendl: Paprika chicken (paprikás csirke), a Hungarian dish of chicken stewed in paprika sauce.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
phonograph: Edison's sound-recording device, which Seward uses to keep his diary on wax cylinders.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:V XI XII XVII XXI XXIV XXV
Piccadilly: A major street in London's West End, where the Count buys a house.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIII XV XX XXII
pokol: Pokol, Hungarian for Hell.; Wiktionary →· Chapters:I XVIII
Pruth: The Prut river, which joins the Danube below Galatz.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXVI
Purfleet: A town on the Thames in Essex, where the Count buys Carfax.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:II VIII XX XXVII
Robin Hood’s Bay: A fishing village south of Whitby.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VII VIII
sacred bullet: Van Helsing says a blessed bullet fired into the coffin kills the vampire for good.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVIII
Saxons: The Transylvanian Saxons, German settlers who arrived in the 12th century.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Scholomance: A legendary school of black magic where the Devil teaches students. Stoker had it from Emily Gerard.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XVIII XXIII
Sereth: The Siret river, which flows south into the Danube near Galatz.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXVI
shorthand: Pitman shorthand. Mina and Jonathan both write their journals in it.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III IV V VI XIII XIV XVII XXIII
solicitor: A lawyer handling conveyancing and contracts, like Harker and Mr. Hawkins.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:II III VII XIII XXII
sovereign: A gold coin worth one pound sterling.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XI XII XX
St. George’s Day: 23 April (4 May in the Orthodox calendar). On its eve, folklore said, evil things had full sway.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
St. Mary’s Church: The church on Whitby's East Cliff, surrounded by a windswept churchyard.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VIII XIX XXI
stake: Driving a wooden stake through the heart is the classic method for destroying a vampire.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XV XVI XVIII XIX XXI XXIII XXV XXVII
stregoica: Witch. Stoker's Romanian folklore source rendered the word as strigoaică.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I XVIII
Szekelys: The Székelys, a Hungarian-speaking people of eastern Transylvania. The Count claims to descend from them.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I III
Szgany: From Hungarian cigány, 'gypsy': the Romani people, many of whom were enslaved in Wallachia and Moldavia until the 1850s.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:IV XXVI XXVII
Tate Hill Pier: The Whitby pier where the Demeter crashes ashore.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VII
telegram: Messages sent by electric telegraph, the fastest communication of the era.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:V IX X XI XII XIII XIV XVII XXIII XXV
Texas: Annexed by the US in 1845, Texas was still frontier country in 1897, which shapes Quincey as the novel's cowboy hero.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:V XVIII
Thames: The river through London on which the Count escapes aboard the Czarina Catherine.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXIV XXVI
Thor: The Norse god of thunder, among the Count's ancestral gods.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III XVI
transfusion: Blood transfusion was dangerous in 1897. Blood types were not discovered until 1901.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:X XI XII XIII
Transylvania: A historical region in present-day Romania. In 1897 it was part of Austria-Hungary.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II III IV V XIV XVII XIX XXII XXIV XXVII
trephine: A surgical saw for cutting a hole in the skull, used on Renfield.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXI
Turk: The Ottoman Turks, whom the historical Dracula (Vlad III) fought in the 15th century.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I II III XVIII
typewriter: A newly fashionable machine in 1897. Mina types up the group's records.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:V XIV XVII XXV XXVI
Un-Dead: Stoker's working title for the novel was 'The Un-Dead'.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XV XVI XVII XXII XXIV XXVII
vampire: A revenant that feeds on the life essence of the living. Stoker drew on folklore and on Polidori and Le Fanu.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I XV XVII XVIII XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXVI XXVII
Varna: A Bulgarian port on the Black Sea where the Demeter's voyage begins.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III VII XVII XXIV XXV XXVI
Veresti: Verești, a village on the Siret where the hunters split up.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXVI XXVII
Vienna: Imperial capital of the Habsburgs and, in 1897, the gateway from Western Europe to the Balkans by rail.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
vlkoslak: Another Slavic term for a werewolf or vampire.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Voivode: A military governor or prince. Vlad III held the title in Wallachia.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III XVIII
vrolok: A Slavic word Stoker gives for vampire or werewolf. It relates to vrykolakas.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Wallachs: Wallachians, the Romanian-speaking people of Wallachia and Transylvania.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I
Westminster Gazette: A London paper that reports the 'Bloofer Lady' attacks.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XIII XIV XVII
Whitby: A Yorkshire fishing port where the Demeter runs aground. Stoker holidayed there in 1890.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:II III VI VII VIII IX XI XIII XIV XVII XVIII XIX XXI XXVI
Whitby Abbey: A ruined 7th-century abbey on the East Cliff above Whitby.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:VI
wild rose: A branch of wild rose on a coffin was believed to keep a vampire inside.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:III XVIII XXIV
Winchester: The Winchester repeating rifles the hunters carry into Transylvania.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XXIV XXVII
wolf: Wolves still roamed the Carpathians in large numbers; Romania holds one of Europe's biggest wolf populations today.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:I XI XV XVIII XXIV XXVI XXVII
Zoölogical Gardens: London Zoo in Regent's Park, from which the wolf Bersicker escapes.; Wikipedia →· Chapters:XI XV
zoöphagous: Life-eating. Seward invents the word to describe Renfield.; Wiktionary →· Chapters:VI IX X XVII XXIII