vegetable

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   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. 2
   adj

   Of or relating to plants.

   This substance is vegetable not mineral.

3. 3
   noun

   edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant

4. 4
   noun

   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

5. 5
   noun

   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.

6. 6
   noun

   The edible part of such a plant.

7. 7
   noun

   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.

8. 8
   noun

   A mine (explosive device).

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, whence modern wort and ovest. Related to vigil, vigour, vajra, and waker.