 The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first appearance of the English word vampire ( as vampyre ) in English from 1734 , in a travelogue titled Travels of Three English Gentlemen published in The Harleian Miscellany in 1745 . Vampires had already been discussed in French and German literature . After Austria gained control of northern Serbia and Oltenia with the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718 , officials noted the local practice of exhuming bodies and " killing vampires " . These reports , prepared between 1725 and 1732 , received widespread publicity . The English term was derived ( possibly via French vampyre ) from the German Vampir , in turn derived in the early 18th century from the Serbian vampir ( Cyrillic : вампир ) , when Arnold Paole , a purported vampire in Serbia was described during the time when Northern Serbia was part of the Austrian Empire . 
