vegetable
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- vegitable (obsolete)
EtymologyEdit
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.
PronunciationEdit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈvɛd͡ʒ(ə)təbəl/
Audio (UK) (file) - (US, Canada) IPA(key): /ˈvɛd͡ʒ(ə)təbəl/, /ˈvɛt͡ʃtəbəl/
Audio (US) (file)
NounEdit
vegetable (plural vegetables)
- 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.
- 1837, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (volume 23, page 222)
- 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.
- The edible part of such a plant.
- (figuratively, derogatory) A person whose brain (or, infrequently, body) has been damaged so that they cannot interact with the surrounding environment; a person in a persistent vegetative state.
- Synonym: cabbage
Derived termsEdit
- aromatic vegetable
- green vegetable bug
- hydrolyzed vegetable protein
- leaf vegetable
- multivegetable
- nonvegetable
- regrowing vegetable
- root vegetable
- sea vegetable
- vegeburger
- vegetable box
- vegetable carbon
- vegetable fat
- vegetable fern
- vegetable garden
- vegetable ivory
- vegetable juice
- vegetable kingdom
- vegetable lamb
- vegetable leather
- vegetable marrow
- vegetable mercury
- vegetable oil
- vegetable rennet
- vegetable sheep
- vegetable soup
- vegetable sulfur
- vegetably
- veggie
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
AdjectiveEdit
vegetable (not comparable)
- 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 654408264, 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.
- Of or relating to vegetables.
TranslationsEdit
of or relating to plants
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of or relating to vegetables
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Further readingEdit
- vegetable on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- vegetable (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia