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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

vegetable.

Any plant.

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bɫ̩]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.ə.tə.bəl/UK, dialectal[ˈvɛd͡ʒ.ə.tə.bɫ̩]UK, dialectal
  1. Any plant.

    archaic
  2. 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, and usually including non-plants lumped into the same culinary category, such as edible mushrooms and seaweed.

  3. The edible part of such a plant.

  4. 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 · often
  5. A mine (explosive device).

    historical · slang
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Italic *weg-o-der.? Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Indo-European *woǵéyetider. Proto-Italic *wogeōder.? Latin vegeō Latin vegetus Latin vegetāre, vegetō Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Italic *-ðlom Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin vegetābilisbor. Old French vegetablebor. Middle English vegetable English vegetable 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.

adj/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bɫ̩]Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.ə.tə.bəl/UK, dialectal[ˈvɛd͡ʒ.ə.tə.bɫ̩]UK, dialectal
  1. Of or relating to plants.

    not-comparable
    This substance is vegetable, not mineral.
  2. Of or relating to vegetables.

    not-comparable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Italic *weg-o-der.? Proto-Indo-European *weǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Indo-European *woǵéyetider. Proto-Italic *wogeōder.? Latin vegeō Latin vegetus Latin vegetāre, vegetō Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Italic *-ðlom Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin vegetābilisbor. Old French vegetablebor. Middle English vegetable English vegetable 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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.