vegetable

English

Alternative forms

• vegitable (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English vegetable, from Old French vegetable, from Latin vegetābilis (“able to live and grow”), derived from vegetāre (“to enliven”). Displaced native Old English wyrt and ofett.

Related to vigil, vigour, vajra, and waker.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/, [ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bl̩], /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.ə.tə.bəl/

• Audio (UK):

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• Audio (US):

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• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛt͡ʃ.tə.bəl/

Noun

vegetable (plural vegetables)

1. Any plant.
   • 1837, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume 23, page 222:

     That he might ascertain whether any of the cloths of ancient Egypt were made of hemp, M. Dutrochet has examined with the microscope the weavable filaments of this last vegetable.

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the wrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwood — a giant of a vegetable, with a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a company could have manoeuvred.

2. 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.

   Synonyms: (informal) veg, (informal) veggie

3. The edible part of such a plant.

   Synonyms: (informal) veg, (informal) veggie

4. (figuratively, 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.

   Synonym: cabbage

5. (RAF, slang, historical) A mine (explosive device).

Derived terms

• aromatic vegetable
• fruit vegetable
• green vegetable bug
• hydrolyzed vegetable protein
• leaf vegetable
• multivegetable
• nonvegetable
• pod vegetable
• regrowing vegetable
• root vegetable
• sea vegetable
• textured vegetable protein
• Tianjin preserved vegetable
• vegeburger
• vegetable acid
• vegetable-based
• vegetable box
• vegetable butter
• vegetable carbon
• vegetable caterpillar
• vegetable dye
• vegetable egg
• vegetable fat
• vegetable fern
• vegetable food
• vegetable garden
• vegetable hummingbird
• vegetable ivory
• vegetable ivory tree
• vegetable jelly
• vegetable juice
• vegetable kingdom
• vegetable lamb
• vegetable leather
• vegetable marrow
• vegetable mercury
• vegetable oil
• vegetable rennet
• vegetable sheep
• vegetable shortening
• vegetable soup
• vegetable spaghetti
• vegetable sulfur
• vegetable sulphur
• vegetably
• veggie

 

Related terms

• vegan
• vegetarian
• vegetate
• vegetation

 

Translations

See vegetable/translations § Noun.

Adjective

vegetable (not comparable)

1. Of or relating to plants.
   • 1882, Thomas Hardy, chapter I, in Two on a Tower. A Romance. [...] In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 1:

     On an early winter afternoon, clear but not cold, when the vegetable world was a weird multitude of skeletons through whose ribs the sun shone freely, a gleaming landau came to a pause on the crest of a hill in Wessex.

2. Of or relating to vegetables.

Translations

of or relating to plants

• Arabic: نَبَاتِيّ m (nabātiyy)
• Basque: landare-
• Bulgarian: растителен (rastitelen)
• Catalan: vegetal (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 蔬菜 (zh) (shūcài)

• Dutch: planten-, plantaardig (nl)
• Esperanto: legoma
• Finnish: kasvi-
• French: végétal (fr)
• German: pflanzlich (de)
• Greek: φυτο- (fyto-)
• Interlingua: vegetal
• Italian: vegetale (it)
• Macedonian: расти́телен m (rastítelen)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: vegetabilsk

  Nynorsk: vegetabilsk

• Polish: roślinny (pl)
• Portuguese: vegetal (pt)
• Romanian: vegetal (ro) m or n
• Spanish: vegetal (es), vegetable (es)
• Ukrainian: росли́нний (uk) (roslýnnyj)
• Vietnamese: rau (vi)
• Welsh: planhigol

of or relating to vegetables

• Arabic: خَضْرَاوِيّ m (ḵaḍrāwiyy)
• Bulgarian: зеленчуков (zelenčukov)
• Dutch: groente-
• Finnish: kasvis-
• French: légumier (fr)
• German: Pflanzen- (de), Gemüse- (de)
• Greek: φυτο- (fyto-)

  Ancient: λαχανηρός (lakhanērós)

• Hindi: सब्ज़ी (hi) f (sabzī)
• Interlingua: leguminose
• Japanese: 野菜の (yasai no), 植物の (shokubutsu no), ベジタブルな (ja) (bejitaburu-na) (colloquial), 菜〜 (sai-), 野菜〜 (yasai-), 植物〜 (shokubutsu-)
• Korean: 야채 (ko) (yachae), 채소 (ko) (chaeso)
• Latin: olitōrius
• Macedonian: зеле́нчуков (zelénčukov)
• Polish: jarzynowy (pl), warzywny (pl)
• Portuguese: leguminoso
• Russian: овощно́й (ru) (ovoščnój)
• Welsh: llysieuol

Further reading

• vegetable on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• vegetable (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia