vegetable

/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl//ˈvɛt͡ʃ.tə.bəl/

vegetable noun: any plant.

Noun

vegetable (plural vegetables)

(archaic) Any 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.1837, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, volume 23, page 222
- 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...1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
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.2025 January 13, Gina Kolata, “Have Americans Ever Really Been Healthy?”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 14 Jan 2025
Synonyms:

veg, veggie
The edible part of such a plant.

Synonyms:

veg, veggie
(derogatory, figuratively, often) 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.

Synonyms:

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

Adjective

vegetable (not comparable)

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.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
Of or relating to vegetables.

vegetable meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

vegetable in Hindi

any plant: सब्ज़ी sabzī
a plant raised for some edible part of it: सब्ज़ी sabzī, तरकारी tarkārī
of or relating to vegetables: सब्ज़ी sabzī

vegetable in Tamil

any plant: காய்கறி kāykaṟi, மரக்கறி marakkaṟi
a plant raised for some edible part of it: காய்கறி kāykaṟi, மரக்கறி marakkaṟi
edible part of such a plant: காய்கறி kāykaṟi, மரக்கறி marakkaṟi
of or relating to plants: காய்கறி kāykaṟi

vegetable in Marathi

a plant raised for some edible part of it: भाजी bhājī

vegetable in Urdu

a plant raised for some edible part of it: سَبْزی sabzī

More languagesFewer languages

vegetable in Bengali: সবজি śoboji
vegetable in Telugu: శాకము śākamu
vegetable in Malayalam: പച്ചക്കറി paccakkaṟi
vegetable in Kannada: ಕಾಯಿ kāyi, ಬಾಡು bāḍu
vegetable in Punjabi: ਸਬਜ਼ੀ sabzī
vegetable in Gujarati: શાકભાજી śākbhājī, સબજી sabjī
vegetable in Sanskrit: चुच्चु cuccu, शाक śāka
vegetable in Sinhala: එළවළු eḷawaḷu
vegetable in Assamese: পাচলি pasoli
vegetable in Tagalog: gulay, lantang gulay
vegetable in Arabic: نَبَات nabāt, بَقْلَة baqla, خُضَر ḵuḍar, خُضَار ḵuḍār
vegetable in Malay: sayuran, sayur-sayuran
vegetable in Indonesian: sayuran, sayur-sayuran
vegetable in Thai: พืช pʉ̂ʉt, ผัก pàk, พืชผัก pʉ̂ʉt-pàk
vegetable in Vietnamese: thực vật, rau, người thực vật
vegetable in Myanmar: ဟင်းသီးဟင်းရွက် hang:si:hang:rwak
Sindhi: سبزي sabzi

Examples of vegetable in a sentence

Bring the water to the boil and drop the vegetables in.
Cream the vegetables with the olive oil, flour, salt and water mixture.
You can start the vegetables cooking while you are lemoning the fish.

All 40 example sentences with vegetable

Synonyms of vegetable

Forms of vegetable

plural	vegetables
alternative form (obsolete)	vegitable

Plural of vegetable: vegetables

Origin of vegetable

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.

Words formed from vegetable

Questions about vegetable

What does vegetable mean?: Vegetable means any plant.
What is vegetable in Hindi?: Vegetable in Hindi is सब्ज़ी (sabzī), तरकारी (tarkārī). See Vegetable meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is vegetable?: Vegetable can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce vegetable?: Vegetable is pronounced /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ (UK).
What is the plural of vegetable?: The plural of vegetable is vegetables.

Words near vegetable in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: vegetable (page history and authors); శాకము (Telugu) (page history and authors); ಕಾಯಿ (Kannada) (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: En-uk-vegetable.ogg, en-us-vegetable.ogg.

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