Vegetable
//ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl// adj, noun, slang
adj, noun, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Any plant.
"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."
- 2 edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant wordnet
- 3 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.
- 4 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 wordnet
- 5 The edible part of such a plant.
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- 6 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. derogatory, figuratively
- 7 A mine (explosive device). historical, slang
Adjective
- 1 Of or relating to plants. not-comparable
"This substance is vegetable not mineral."
- 2 Of or relating to vegetables. not-comparable
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Tom ate vegetable soup this morning."
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. Related to vigil, vigour, vajra, and waker.
Related phrases
More for "vegetable"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.