What are Zombies in Linux?

[twofoolish2b]

Just killing time here at work waiting for the holiday to kick in. I was wondering what a Zombie is in Linux. I did the command (top) and found 1 Zombie. I also searched the forum on Zombie but didn't come up with much. I just would like to have some idea about what it is. Thanks...

[drmbb]

got this from the Jargon file ( http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/The-Jargon-Lexicon-framed.html )
----------------------------------
zombie n.

[Unix] A process that has died but has not yet relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process hasn't executed a wait(2) for it yet). These can be seen in ps(1) listings occasionally. Compare orphan.
------------------------------------