vegetable

noun

1. 1

   archaicAny plant.

   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.

   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. 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.

   It’s true that agriculture at the time was organic, food was locally produced and there were no ultraprocessed foods. But fresh fruits and vegetables were in short supply because they were difficult to ship and because growing seasons were so short.

3. 3

   The edible part of such a plant.

4. 4

   figurativeA 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.

5. 5

   historicalA mine (explosive device).

adjective

1. 1

   Of or relating to plants.

   This substance is vegetable, not mineral.

   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. 2

   Of or relating to vegetables.

Forms

plural

vegetables