vegetable
/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ noun, adjective
Forms vegetables vegitable
- noun (archaic) Any plant.
- noun A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice in the culinary sense, and usually including non-plants lumped into the same culinary category, such as edible mushrooms and seaweed.
- noun The edible part of such a plant.
- noun (figuratively, often derogatory) A person whose brain (or, infrequently, whose body) has been damaged to the point that they cannot interact with the surrounding environment; a person in a persistent vegetative state.
- noun (RAF, slang, historical) A mine (explosive device).
- adjective Of or relating to plants. “This substance is vegetable, not mineral.”
- adjective Of or relating to vegetables.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English vegetable, from Old French vegetable, from Latin vegetābilis (“able to live and grow”), derived from vegetāre (“to enliven”). Displaced Old English wyrt and ofett, whence modern wort and ovest.
Related to vigil, vigour, vajra, and waker.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Of or pertaining to plants; having the nature of, or produced by, plants; as, a vegetable nature; vegetable growths, juices, etc. Blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold. Milton.
- adjective Consisting of, or comprising, plants; as, the vegetable kingdom.
Etymology [F. végétable growing, capable of growing, formerly also, as a noun, a vegetable, from L. vegetabilis enlivening, from vegetare to enliven, invigorate, quicken, vegetus enlivened, vigorous, active, vegere to quicken, arouse, to be lively, akin to vigere to be lively, to thrive, vigil watchful, awake, and probably to E. wake, v. See Vigil, Wake, v.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “vegetable”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details