Etymologically
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vegetable

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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
  • 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