vegetable

English

Alternative forms

• vegitable (obsolete)

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.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/, [ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bɫ̩], /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.ə.tə.bəl/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

  • Audio (US):

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• (US, Canada, dialectal) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛt͡ʃ.tə.bəl/
• (North India) IPA^(key): /ˌvɛdʒɪˈʈebəl/
• (South India) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛdʒɪʈəbɪl/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈved͡ʒ.tə.bəl/, [ˈved͡ʒ.tə.bɫ̩]

Noun

vegetable (plural vegetables)

1. (archaic) Any plant.
   • 1837, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume 23, page 222:

     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.

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the wrong one. So with the second. The third rose nearly two hundred feet into the air above a clump of underwood — a giant of a vegetable, with a red column as big as a cottage, and a wide shadow around in which a company could have manoeuvred.

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.

   Synonyms: (informal) veg, (informal) veggie

3. The edible part of such a plant.

   Synonyms: (informal) veg, (informal) veggie

4. (figuratively, derogatory) 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.

   Synonym: cabbage

5. (RAF, slang, historical) A mine (explosive device).

Derived terms

• aromatic vegetable
• fruit vegetable
• green vegetable bug
• hydrolyzed vegetable protein
• leaf vegetable
• multivegetable
• nonvegetable
• pod vegetable
• regrowing vegetable
• root vegetable
• sea vegetable
• textured vegetable protein
• Tianjin preserved vegetable
• vegeburger
• vegetable acid
• vegetable albumin
• vegetable-based
• vegetable box
• vegetable butter
• vegetable carbon
• vegetable casein
• vegetable caterpillar
• vegetable dye
• vegetable egg
• vegetable fat
• vegetable fern
• vegetable fibrin
• vegetable food
• vegetable garden
• vegetable hummingbird
• vegetable ivory
• vegetable ivory tree
• vegetable jelly
• vegetable juice
• vegetable kingdom
• vegetable lamb
• vegetable leather
• vegetable marrow
• vegetable meat
• vegetable mercury
• vegetable mucus
• vegetable oil
• vegetable oyster
• vegetable parchment
• vegetable pear
• vegetable rennet
• vegetable sheep
• vegetable shortening
• vegetable soup
• vegetable spaghetti
• vegetable sulfur
• vegetable sulphur
• vegetable vitellin
• vegetable weevil
• vegetably
• veggie

Related terms

• vegan
• vegetarian
• vegetate
• vegetation

Translations

See vegetable/translations § Noun.

Adjective

vegetable (not comparable)

1. Of or relating to plants.

   This substance is vegetable, not mineral.

   • 1882, Thomas Hardy, chapter I, in Two on a Tower. A Romance. [...] In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 1:

     On an early winter afternoon, clear but not cold, when the vegetable world was a weird multitude of skeletons through whose ribs the sun shone freely, a gleaming landau came to a pause on the crest of a hill in Wessex.

2. Of or relating to vegetables.

Descendants

• Krio: vɛjitebul
• Tok Pisin: vejetebel
• → Fanagalo: vejetebel

Translations

of or relating to plants

• Arabic: نَبَاتِيّ m (nabātiyy)
• Basque: landare-
• Bulgarian: растителен (rastitelen)
• Catalan: vegetal (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 蔬菜 (zh) (shūcài)

• Dutch: planten-, plantaardig (nl)
• Esperanto: legoma
• Finnish: kasvi- (fi)
• French: végétal (fr)
• German: pflanzlich (de)
• Greek: φυτο- (fyto-)
• Interlingua: vegetal
• Italian: vegetale (it)
• Macedonian: расти́телен m (rastítelen)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: vegetabilsk

  Nynorsk: vegetabilsk

• Polish: roślinny (pl)
• Portuguese: vegetal (pt)
• Romanian: vegetal (ro) m or n
• Spanish: vegetal (es), vegetable (es)
• Tamil: காய்கறி (ta) (kāykaṟi)
• Ukrainian: росли́нний (uk) (roslýnnyj)
• Vietnamese: rau (vi)
• Welsh: planhigol

of or relating to vegetables

• Arabic: خَضْرَاوِيّ m (ḵaḍrāwiyy)
• Bulgarian: зеленчуков (zelenčukov)
• Dutch: groente-
• Finnish: kasvis- (fi)
• French: légumier (fr)
• German: Pflanzen- (de), Gemüse- (de)
• Greek: φυτο- (fyto-)

  Ancient Greek: λαχανηρός (lakhanērós)

• Hindi: सब्ज़ी (hi) f (sabzī)
• Interlingua: leguminose
• Japanese: 野菜の (yasai no), 植物の (shokubutsu no), ベジタブルな (ja) (bejitaburu-na) (colloquial), 菜〜 (sai-), 野菜〜 (yasai-), 植物〜 (shokubutsu-)
• Korean: 야채 (ko) (yachae), 채소 (ko) (chaeso)
• Latin: olitōrius
• Macedonian: зеле́нчуков (zelénčukov)
• Polish: jarzynowy (pl), warzywny (pl)
• Portuguese: leguminoso
• Russian: овощно́й (ru) (ovoščnój)
• Tamil: காய்கறி (ta) (kāykaṟi)
• Welsh: llysieuol

Further reading

• vegetable on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• vegetable (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Spanish

Noun

vegetable m (plural vegetables)

1. (US) vegetable

Adjective

vegetable m or f (masculine and feminine plural vegetables)

1. (uncommon) vegetable

Further reading

• “vegetable”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025
• Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense