dietary

/ˈdaɪət(ə)ɹi/US/ˈdaɪəˌtɛɹi/

dietary noun: a regulated diet that excludes or constrains certain types of food, especially for health reasons; also, a book or similar setting out such regulations.

Noun

dietary (plural dietaries)

A regulated diet that excludes or constrains certain types of food, especially for health reasons; also, a book or similar setting out such regulations.
- [H]er lassitude was such that she hardly cared to feed herself; yet she managed to consume five or six times a normal dietary.1917, Aleister Crowley, Moonchild, Weiser, published 2010, page 219
- In general, beets, carrots, and turnips are all of aphrodisiac value in erotic dietary.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 42
A prescribed meal plan setting out how the inhabitants of an institution (such as a prison, hospital etc.) should be fed, and on what foods.
- “Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?” “He did, sir,” replied Bumble.1837 February, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Treats of Oliver Twist’s Growth, Education, and Board”, in Oliver Twist; […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], published 1838, →OCLC, page 30
- I cannot speak with any confidence of the pre-war dietary of asylum patients, which no doubt differs widely in different asylums.1921, Montagu Lomax, The Experiences of an Asylum Doctor, London: Allen & Unwin, page 119

Adjective

dietary (not comparable)

Pertaining to a prescribed diet; (generally), relating to what a person or animal eats.
- If you have any dietary requirements, please inform the kitchen staff.
Comprising a food source.
- For example, the antitumour depsipeptide kahalalide F was isolated from the opisthobranch mollusc Elysia rufescens, and is used by both the mollusc and its dietary alga Bryopsis spp.2016 January 21, “Choose Your Weaponry: Selective Storage of a Single Toxic Compound, Latrunculin A, by Closely Related Nudibranch Molluscs”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI

dietary meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Vietnamese

dietary in Tamil

உணவுத்திட்டம், சீரான உணவுப் பழக்கம்

dietary in Bengali

of, or relating to diet: পরহেজী pôrhezī

dietary in Vietnamese

of, or relating to diet: chế độ ăn uống

Examples of dietary in a sentence

Marked weakness unresponsive to dietary change and exercise may indicate an underlying neurologic or metabolic problem.
The patients in the control group had ad lib access to snacks and were given no extra dietary advice.
Slimming aids include dietary supplements and appetite suppressants.

All 35 example sentences with dietary

Forms of dietary

plural	dietaries

Origin of dietary

From Medieval Latin diētārium (“book prescribing diet”), from Latin diaeta (“diet”).

Words formed from dietary

Phrases with dietary

Questions about dietary

What does dietary mean?: Dietary means a regulated diet that excludes or constrains certain types of food, especially for health reasons; also, a book or similar setting out such regulations.
What is dietary in Tamil?: Dietary in Tamil is உணவுத்திட்டம், சீரான உணவுப் பழக்கம். See Dietary meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is dietary?: Dietary can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce dietary?: Dietary is pronounced /ˈdaɪət(ə)ɹi/ (UK).
What is the plural of dietary?: The plural of dietary is dietaries.

Words near dietary in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: dietary (page history and authors); dietary (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dietary.wav.

Cite this entry: “dietary.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dietary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.