Adjacent Words

Vegetable definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

VEG'ETABLE, n. [L. vigeo, to grow.]
1. A plant; an organized body destitute of sense and voluntary motion, deriving its nourishment through pores or vessels on its outer surface, in most instances adhering to some other body, as the earth, and in general, propagating itself by seeds. some vegetables have spontaneous motion, as the sunflower. Vegetables alone have the power of deriving nourishment from inorganic matter, or organic matter entirely decomposed.
2. In a more limited sense, vegetables are such plants as are used for culinary purposes and cultivated in gardens, or are destined for feeding cattle and sheep. Vegetables for these uses are such as are of a more soft and fleshy substance than trees and shrubs; such as cabbage, cauliflower, turnips, potatoes, peas, beans, etc.
VEG'ETABLE, a.
1. Belonging to plants; as a vegetable nature; vegetable qualities; vegetable juices.
2. Consisting of plants; as the vegetable kingdom.
3. having the nature of plants; as a vegetable body.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant [syn: vegetable, veggie, veg]
2: any of various herbaceous plants cultivated for an edible part such as the fruit or the root of the beet or the leaf of spinach or the seeds of bean plants or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin vegetabilis vegetative, from vegetare to grow, from Latin, to animate, from vegetus lively, from veg?re to enliven — more at wake Date: 15th century 1. a. of, relating to, constituting, or growing like plants b. consisting of plants ; vegetational 2. made from, obtained from, or containing plants or plant products <vegetable soup> <vegetable fat> 3. resembling or suggesting a plant (as in inertness or passivity) II. noun Date: 15th century 1. plant 1b 2. a usually herbaceous plant (as the cabbage, bean, or potato) grown for an edible part that is usually eaten as part of a meal; also such an edible part 3. a person whose mental and physical functioning is severely impaired and especially one who requires supportive measures (as mechanical ventilation) to survive

Britannica Concise

In the broadest sense, all plant life and plant products (vegetable matter); in common, narrow usage, the fresh edible portion of herbaceous plants (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, or fruit), either eaten fresh or prepared in some way. Almost all current vegetables were cultivated in ancient Old or New World civilizations, though some have been greatly modified. Vegetables are good sources of minerals (especially calcium and iron), vitamins (especially A and C), and dietary fiber. All the amino acids needed to synthesize protein are available in vegetables. Fresh vegetables quickly age and spoil, but their storage life can be extended by such preservation methods as dehydration, canning, freezing, fermenting, and pickling.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & adj. --n. 1 Bot. any of various plants, esp. a herbaceous plant used wholly or partly for food, e.g. a cabbage, potato, turnip, or bean. 2 colloq. a a person who is incapable of normal intellectual activity, esp. through brain injury etc. b a person lacking in animation or living a monotonous life. --adj. 1 of, derived from, relating to, or comprising plants or plant life, esp. as distinct from animal life or mineral substances. 2 of or relating to vegetables as food. 3 a unresponsive to stimulus (vegetable behaviour). b uneventful, monotonous (a vegetable existence). Phrases and idioms: vegetable butter a vegetable fat with the consistency of butter. vegetable ivory see IVORY. vegetable marrow see MARROW 1. vegetable oyster = SALSIFY. vegetable parchment see PARCHMENT 2. vegetable spaghetti 1 a variety of marrow with flesh resembling spaghetti. 2 its flesh. vegetable sponge = LOOFAH. vegetable tallow see TALLOW. vegetable wax an exudation of certain plants such as sumac. Etymology: ME f. OF vegetable or LL vegetabilis animating (as VEGETATE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vegetable Veg`e*ta*ble, a. [F. v['e]g['e]table 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.] 1. 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. 2. Consisting of, or comprising, plants; as, the vegetable kingdom. Vegetable alkali (Chem.), an alkaloid. Vegetable brimstone. (Bot.) See Vegetable sulphur, below. Vegetable butter (Bot.), a name of several kinds of concrete vegetable oil; as that produced by the Indian butter tree, the African shea tree, and the Pentadesma butyracea, a tree of the order Guttifer[ae], also African. Still another kind is pressed from the seeds of cocoa (Theobroma). Vegetable flannel, a textile material, manufactured in Germany from pine-needle wool, a down or fiber obtained from the leaves of the Pinus sylvestris. Vegetable ivory. See Ivory nut, under Ivory. Vegetable jelly. See Pectin. Vegetable kingdom. (Nat. Hist.) See the last Phrase, below. Vegetable leather. (a) (Bot.) A shrubby West Indian spurge (Euphorbia punicea), with leathery foliage and crimson bracts. (b) See Vegetable leather, under Leather. Vegetable marrow (Bot.), an egg-shaped gourd, commonly eight to ten inches long. It is noted for the very tender quality of its flesh, and is a favorite culinary vegetable in England. It has been said to be of Persian origin, but is now thought to have been derived from a form of the American pumpkin. Vegetable oyster (Bot.), the oyster plant. See under Oyster. Vegetable parchment, papyrine. Vegetable sheep (Bot.), a white woolly plant (Raoulia eximia) of New Zealand, which grows in the form of large fleecy cushions on the mountains. Vegetable silk, a cottonlike, fibrous material obtained from the coating of the seeds of a Brazilian tree (Chorisia speciosa). It us used for various purposes, as for stuffing, and the like, but is incapable of being spun on account of a want of cohesion among the fibers. Vegetable sponge. See 1st Loof. Vegetable sulphur, the fine highly inflammable spores of the club moss (Lycopodium clavatum); witch. Vegetable tallow, a substance resembling tallow, obtained from various plants; as, Chinese vegetable tallow, obtained from the seeds of the tallow tree. Indian vegetable tallow is a name sometimes given to piney tallow. Vegetable wax, a waxy excretion on the leaves or fruits of certain plants, as the bayberry.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Vegetable Veg"e*ta*ble, n. 1. (Biol.) A plant. See Plant. 2. A plant used or cultivated for food for man or domestic animals, as the cabbage, turnip, potato, bean, dandelion, etc.; also, the edible part of such a plant, as prepared for market or the table.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(vegetables) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Vegetables are plants such as cabbages, potatoes, and onions which you can cook and eat. A good general diet should include plenty of fresh vegetables. ...vegetable soup. N-COUNT 2. Vegetable matter comes from plants. (FORMAL) ...compounds, of animal, vegetable or mineral origin. ADJ: usu ADJ n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Plant.

Moby Thesaurus

Boston lettuce, Chinese cabbage, French bean, Irish potato, Kraut, Swiss chard, amphibian, angiosperm, annual, apathetic, aquatic plant, asparagus, aubergine, bean, bean sprout, beans, beet, beet greens, beetroot, bell pepper, benumbed, biennial, blase, bored, botanic, broccoli, bulbous, butter bean, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celery, celery cabbage, celery root, celtuce, cereal, chard, chick-pea, chicory, collards, contemplative, corn, cosmopolite, cress, cucumber, cutting, dead, debilitated, deciduous plant, dicot, dicotyledon, do-nothing, dopey, dormant, droopy, drugged, dull, eggplant, enervated, ephemeral, evergreen, exanimate, exotic, farinaceous, flowering plant, fruitlike, fruity, fungus, gametophyte, garlic, green bean, green onion, green pea, green pepper, greens, gumbo, gymnosperm, heavy, hebetudinous, herbaceous, herbal, herbose, herbous, herby, hominy, horseradish, hydrophyte, idle, immobile, inactive, inanimate, inert, jaded, kale, kidney beans, kohlrabi, lackadaisical, laissez-aller, laissez-faire, languid, languorous, leaden, leek, legumes, leguminose, leguminous, lentil, lethargic, lettuce, lifeless, listless, love apple, lumpish, mad apple, maize, meditative, monocot, monocotyl, moribund, motionless, mushroom, navy bean, neuter, neutral, numb, onion, oyster plant, paralytic, paralyzed, parsley, parsnip, passive, pea, pepper, perennial, phlegmatic, pieplant, pimento, pinto bean, plant, plantlike, polycot, polycotyl, polycotyledon, pooped, popcorn, potato, potherbs, procrastinating, produce, pumpkin, quiescent, quietist, quietistic, radicated, radiciform, radicular, radish, red cabbage, red pepper, rhizoid, rhubarb, rootlike, sated, scallion, seed plant, seedling, shallot, sleepy, slow, sluggish, somnolent, sorrel, soy, soya, spermatophyte, spinach, sporophyte, spud, squash, stagnant, stagnating, standpat, static, stationary, stultified, succory, sugar beet, supine, swede, sweet potato, taro, tater, thallophyte, tomato, torpid, triennial, truffle, tuberous, turnip, vascular plant, vegetables, vegetal, vegetarian, vegetational, vegetative, wan, water chestnut, weary, weed, weedy, white potato, world-weary, yam