Vegetal
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any vegetable organism. obsolete
"This melancholy extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and sensibles."
- 1 Capable of growth and reproduction, but not feeling or reason (often opposed to sensible and rational). archaic, historical
"Which although it be denominated from men, and most evident in them, yet it extends and shows itself in vegetal and sensible creatures […]."
- 2 Pertaining to vegetables or plants.
"The landscape of vegetal life is weird—no forests, no meadows, no green hills, no foliage, but clublike stems of plants armed with stilettos."
- 3 Having a grassy, herbaceous taste.
- 1 (of reproduction) characterized by asexual processes wordnet
- 2 composed of vegetation or plants wordnet
Example
More examples"But even the most spiritual life has its temptations. The extravagant fever of industrialism and intellectualism had so subtly poisoned the plant-men that when at last they rebelled against it they swung too far, falling into the snare of a vegetal life as one-sided as the old animal life had been. Little by little they gave less and less energy and time to "animal" pursuits, until at last their nights as well as their days were spent wholly as trees, and the active, exploring, manipulating, animal intelligence died in them forever."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin vegetālis, from Latin vegetō.
Related phrases
More for "vegetal"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.