vegetable

Meanings

Noun

• Any plant.
• 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.
• 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.

Adjective

• Of or relating to plants.
• Of or relating to vegetables.

Origin

• From Middle English vegetable, from Old French vegetable, from Latin vegetābilis, derived from vegetāre. Displaced Old English wyrt ("herb, vegetable, plant, crop, root").