vegetable

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈvedʒ.tə.bəl/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French vegetable (“living, fit to live”) and directly Medieval Latin vegetābilis (“growing, flourishing”), in Late Latin “animating, enlivening”,^[2][3][4] from Latin vegetō (“to enliven, animate”), from vegetus (“lively, active”), from vegeō (“to be alive, active”),^[3][4][5] from Proto-Indo-European *weg- (“to be strong, be lively”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Living and growing as a plant: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew;^[2] about 1400 in the OED, the early 15th century in Etymonline.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

Relating to plants is from the 1580s.^[3][4] As a noun, any plant, it is from 1582,^[2][6] and a plant grown for food is not recorded before 1767.^[2][6][3] The Old English word was wyrt (see wort).^[3] A dull, uneventful life is vegetable from 1854,^[3] a person who leads one from 1921,^[6][3] and a person totally incapacitated from 1976.^[3] Vegetarian is an irregular formation of the mid-19th century, and veg out, to idle mindlessly, arose in the 1970s.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1398 – living as a plant.^[2]
• 1582 – a plant (noun).^[2][6]
• 1767 – a plant grown for food.^[2][6]
• 1854 – dull, uneventful.^[3]
• 1921 – a person living a dull life.^[6]
• 1970s – veg out.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A plant grown for an edible part, such as the root of the beet or the leaves of spinach; that part as food.
2. Any plant; a member of the plant kingdom.
3. (offensive) A person who has lost the use of the mind or body, as from an injury.
4. A dull, inactive person.

Adjective

1. Of, relating to or derived from plants.
2. Made from vegetables.
3. Resembling a plant, or growing like one.

Word family

• nonvegetable
• vegetably
• veggie
• hydrolyzed vegetable protein
• textured vegetable protein
• vegetable butter
• vegetable ivory

Related words

• vegan
• vegetate
• vegetation
• vegetarian
• vigil
• vigor

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press