Vegetable

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: veg=e=ta=ble

CIDE DICTIONARY

Vegetable, a. [F. végétable growing, capable of growing, formerly also, as a noun, a vegetable, from L. vegetabilis enlivening, from vegetare to enliven, invigorate, quicken, vegetus enlivened, vigorous, active, vegere to quicken, arouse, to be lively, akin to vigere to be lively, to thrive, vigil watchful, awake, and probably to E. wake, v. See Vigil, Wake, v.].

•  Of or pertaining to plants; having the nature of, or produced by, plants; as, a vegetable nature; vegetable growths, juices, etc.  [1913 Webster]

  "Blooming ambrosial fruit
  Of vegetable gold."  [1913 Webster]
•  Consisting of, or comprising, plants; as, the vegetable kingdom.  [1913 Webster]

Vegetable alkali (Chem.), an alkaloid. -- Vegetable brimstone. (Bot.) See Vegetable sulphur, below. -- Vegetable butter (Bot.), a name of several kinds of concrete vegetable oil; as that produced by the Indian butter tree, the African shea tree, and the Pentadesma butyracea, a tree of the order Guttiferæ, also African. Still another kind is pressed from the seeds of cocoa (Theobroma). -- Vegetable flannel, a textile material, manufactured in Germany from pine-needle wool, a down or fiber obtained from the leaves of the Pinus sylvestris. -- Vegetable ivory. See Ivory nut, under Ivory. -- Vegetable jelly. See Pectin. -- Vegetable kingdom. (Nat. Hist.) See the last Phrase, below. -- Vegetable leather. (a) (Bot.) A shrubby West Indian spurge (Euphorbia punicea), with leathery foliage and crimson bracts. (b) See Vegetable leather, under Leather. -- Vegetable marrow (Bot.), an egg-shaped gourd, commonly eight to ten inches long. It is noted for the very tender quality of its flesh, and is a favorite culinary vegetable in England. It has been said to be of Persian origin, but is now thought to have been derived from a form of the American pumpkin. -- Vegetable oyster (Bot.), the oyster plant. See under Oyster. -- Vegetable parchment, papyrine. -- Vegetable sheep (Bot.), a white woolly plant (Raoulia eximia) of New Zealand, which grows in the form of large fleecy cushions on the mountains. -- Vegetable silk, a cottonlike, fibrous material obtained from the coating of the seeds of a Brazilian tree (Chorisia speciosa). It is used for various purposes, as for stuffing cushions, and the like, but is incapable of being spun on account of a want of cohesion among the fibers. -- Vegetable sponge. See 1st Loof. -- Vegetable sulphur, the fine and highly inflammable spores of the club moss (Lycopodium clavatum); witch meal. -- Vegetable tallow, a substance resembling tallow, obtained from various plants; as, Chinese vegetable tallow, obtained from the seeds of the tallow tree. Indian vegetable tallow is a name sometimes given to piney tallow. -- Vegetable wax, a waxy excretion on the leaves or fruits of certain plants, as the bayberry.

Vegetable, n. 

•  A plant. See Plant.  [1913 Webster]
•  A plant used or cultivated for food for man or domestic animals, as the cabbage, turnip, potato, bean, dandelion, etc.; also, the edible part of such a plant, as prepared for market or the table.  [1913 Webster]
•  A person who has permanently lost consciousness, due to damage to the brain, but remains alive; sometimes continued life requires support by machinery such as breathing tubes. Such a person is said to be in a vegetative state.  [PJC]

  " Vegetables and fruits are sometimes loosely distinguished by the usual need of cooking the former for the use of man, while the latter may be eaten raw; but the distinction often fails, as in the case of quinces, barberries, and other fruits, and lettuce, celery, and other vegetables. Tomatoes if cooked are vegetables, if eaten raw are fruits."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Vegetable, n. & adj.
--n.
1 Bot. any of various plants, esp. a herbaceous plant used wholly or partly for food, e.g. a cabbage, potato, turnip, or bean.
2 colloq. a a person who is incapable of normal intellectual activity, esp. through brain injury etc. b a person lacking in animation or living a monotonous life.
--adj.
1 of, derived from, relating to, or comprising plants or plant life, esp. as distinct from animal life or mineral substances.
2 of or relating to vegetables as food.
3 a unresponsive to stimulus (vegetable behaviour). b uneventful, monotonous (a vegetable existence).

Idiom

vegetable butter a vegetable fat with the consistency of butter. vegetable ivory see IVORY. vegetable marrow see MARROW 1. vegetable oyster = SALSIFY. vegetable parchment see PARCHMENT 2. vegetable spaghetti
1 a variety of marrow with flesh resembling spaghetti.
2 its flesh. vegetable sponge = LOOFAH. vegetable tallow see TALLOW. vegetable wax an exudation of certain plants such as sumac.

Etymology

ME f. OF vegetable or LL vegetabilis animating (as VEGETATE)

THESAURUS

Vegetable

Boston lettuce, Chinese cabbage, French bean, Irish potato, Kraut, Swiss chard, amphibian, angiosperm, annual, apathetic, aquatic plant, asparagus, aubergine, bean, bean sprout, beans, beet, beet greens, beetroot, bell pepper, benumbed, biennial, blase, bored, botanic, broccoli, bulbous, butter bean, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celery, celery cabbage, celery root, celtuce, cereal, chard, chick-pea, chicory, collards, contemplative, corn, cosmopolite, cress, cucumber, cutting, dead, debilitated, deciduous plant, dicot, dicotyledon, do-nothing, dopey, dormant, droopy, drugged, dull, eggplant, enervated, ephemeral, evergreen, exanimate, exotic, farinaceous, flowering plant, fruitlike, fruity, fungus, gametophyte, garlic, green bean, green onion, green pea, green pepper, greens, gumbo, gymnosperm, heavy, hebetudinous, herbaceous, herbal, herbose, herbous, herby, hominy, horseradish, hydrophyte, idle, immobile, inactive, inanimate, inert, jaded, kale, kidney beans, kohlrabi, lackadaisical, laissez-aller, laissez-faire, languid, languorous, leaden, leek, legumes, leguminose, leguminous, lentil, lethargic, lettuce, lifeless, listless, love apple, lumpish, mad apple, maize, meditative, monocot, monocotyl, moribund, motionless, mushroom, navy bean, neuter, neutral, numb, onion, oyster plant, paralytic, paralyzed, parsley, parsnip, passive, pea, pepper, perennial, phlegmatic, pieplant, pimento, pinto bean, plant, plantlike, polycot, polycotyl, polycotyledon, pooped, popcorn, potato, potherbs, procrastinating, produce, pumpkin, quiescent, quietist, quietistic, radicated, radiciform, radicular, radish, red cabbage, red pepper, rhizoid, rhubarb, rootlike, sated, scallion, seed plant, seedling, shallot, sleepy, slow, sluggish, somnolent, sorrel, soy, soya, spermatophyte, spinach, sporophyte, spud, squash, stagnant, stagnating, standpat, static, stationary, stultified, succory, sugar beet, supine, swede, sweet potato, taro, tater, thallophyte, tomato, torpid, triennial, truffle, tuberous, turnip, vascular plant, vegetables, vegetal, vegetarian, vegetational, vegetative, wan, water chestnut, weary, weed, weedy, white potato, world-weary, yam

ROGET THESAURUS

Vegetable

Life

N life, vitality, viability, animation, vital spark, vital flame, soul, spirit, respiration, wind, breath of life, breath of one's nostrils, oxygen, air, respirator, artificial respirator, heart and lung machine, iron lung, medical devices, lifeblood, Archeus, existence, vivification, vital force, vitalization, revivification, Prometheus, life to come, physiology, biology, animal ecology, nourishment, staff of life, genetics, heredity, inheritance, evolution, natural selection, reproduction (production), microbe, aerobe, anaerobe, facultative anaerobe, obligate aerobe, obligate anaerobe, halophile, methanogen, archaebacteria, microaerophile, animal, vegetable, artificial life, robot, robotics, artificial intelligence, breathing, breathing rate, heartbeat, pulse, temperature, preservation of life, healing (medicine), living, alive, in life, in the flesh, in the land of the living, on this side of the grave, above ground, breathing, quick, animated, animative, lively, all alive and kicking, tenacious of life, full of life, yeasty, vital, vitalic, vivifying, vivified viable, zoetic, Promethean, vivendi causa, atqui vivere militare est, non est vivere sed valere vita.

Vegetability^

N vegetability, vegetable life, vegetation, vegetability, vegetality, rank, lush, vegetable, vegetal, vegetive.

Vegetable

N vegetable, vegetable kingdom, flora, verdure, plant, tree, shrub, bush, creeper, herb, herbage, grass, annual, perennial, biennial, triennial, exotic, timber, forest, wood, woodlands, timberland, hurst, frith, holt, weald, park, chase, greenwood, brake, grove, copse, coppice, bocage, tope, clump of trees, thicket, spinet, spinney, underwood, brushwood, scrub, boscage, bosk, ceja, chaparal, motte, arboretum, bush, jungle, prairie, heath, heather, fern, bracken, furze, gorse, whin, grass, turf, pasture, pasturage, turbary, sedge, rush, weed, fungus, mushroom, toadstool, lichen, moss, conferva, mold, growth, alfalfa, alfilaria, banyan, blow, blowth, floret, petiole, pin grass, timothy, yam, yew, zinnia, foliage, branch, bough, ramage, stem, tigella, spray, leaf, flower, blossom, bine, flowering plant, timber tree, fruit tree, pulse, legume, vegetable, vegetal, vegetive, vegitous, herbaceous, herbal, botanic, sylvan, silvan, arborary, arboreous, arborescent, arborical, woody, grassy, verdant, verdurous, floral, mossy, lignous, ligneous, wooden, leguminous, vosky, cespitose, turf-like, turfy, endogenous, exogenous, green-robed senators of mighty woods, this is the forest primeval, vegetable, vegetable kingdom, flora, verdure, plant, tree, shrub, bush, creeper, herb, herbage, grass, annual, perennial, biennial, triennial, exotic, timber, forest, wood, woodlands, timberland, hurst, frith, holt, weald, park, chase, greenwood, brake, grove, copse, coppice, bocage, tope, clump of trees, thicket, spinet, spinney, underwood, brushwood, scrub, boscage, bosk, ceja, chaparal, motte, arboretum, bush, jungle, prairie, heath, heather, fern, bracken, furze, gorse, whin, grass, turf, pasture, pasturage, turbary, sedge, rush, weed, fungus, mushroom, toadstool, lichen, moss, conferva, mold, growth, alfalfa, alfilaria, banyan, blow, blowth, floret, petiole, pin grass, timothy, yam, yew, zinnia, foliage, branch, bough, ramage, stem, tigella, spray, leaf, flower, blossom, bine, flowering plant, timber tree, fruit tree, pulse, legume, vegetable, vegetal, vegetive, vegitous, herbaceous, herbal, botanic, sylvan, silvan, arborary, arboreous, arborescent, arborical, woody, grassy, verdant, verdurous, floral, mossy, lignous, ligneous, wooden, leguminous, vosky, cespitose, turf-like, turfy, endogenous, exogenous, green-robed senators of mighty woods, this is the forest primeval.

Absence or want of Intellect

N absence of Intellect, want of intellect, imbecility brutality, brute force, instinct, brute instinct, stimulus-response loop, conditioned response, instinctive reaction, Pavlovian response, mimicry, aping (imitation), moron, imbecile, idiot, fool, dumb animal, vegetable, brain dead, Adj, unendowed with reason, void of reason, thoughtless, vegetative, moronic, idiotic, brainless, Adv, instinctively, like Pavlov's dog, vegetatively, unendowed with reason, void of reason, thoughtless, vegetative, moronic, idiotic, brainless, instinctively, like Pavlov's dog, vegetatively, V, mimic, ape (imitate), respond instinctively.

Incogitancy

N incogitancy, vacancy, inunderstanding, fatuity thoughtlessness, vacuity, couch potato, vegetable, vacant, unintellectual, unideal, unoccupied, unthinking, inconsiderate, thoughtless, mindless, no-brain, vacuous, absent, diverted, irrational narrow-minded, unthought of, undreamt 'of, unconsidered, off one's mind, incogitable, not to be thought of, absence d'esprit, pabulum pictura pascit inani.