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Origin and history of vegetable

vegetable(adj.)

early 15c., "capable of life or growth; growing, vigorous" (a sense now archaic); also, of material substances, "neither animal nor mineral, of the plant kingdom, living and growing as a plant," from Old French vegetable "living, fit to live," and directly from Medieval Latin vegetabilis "growing, flourishing," from Late Latin vegetabilis "animating, enlivening."

This is from Latin vegetare "to enliven," from vegetus "vigorous, enlivened, active, sprightly," from vegere "to be alive, active, to quicken" (from PIE root *weg- "to be strong, be lively").

The meaning "of, pertaining to, or composed of plants; resembling a plant in some sense" is by 1580s. The sense of "dull, uneventful" is attested from 1854 (compare vegetative).

also from early 15c.

vegetable(n.)

mid-15c., "non-animal life," originally any plant, probably from vegetable (adj.); the specific sense of "plant cultivated for culinary purposes, edible herb or root" is recorded by 1767. The meaning "person who leads a monotonous life" is recorded from 1921; sense of "one totally incapacitated mentally and physically" is from 1976.

The Old English word was wyrt (see wort). The commonest source of words for vegetables in Indo-European languages are derivatives of words for "green" or "growing" (compare Italian, Spanish verdura, Irish glasraidh, Danish grøntsager). For a different association, compare Greek lakhana, related to lakhaino "to dig."

also from mid-15c.

Entries linking to vegetable

vegetative(adj.)

late 14c., vegetatif, "endowed with the power of physical growth," especially of plants, from Old French vegetatif "(naturally) growing" and directly from Medieval Latin vegetativus, from vegetat-, past participle stem of vegetare (see vegetable (adj.)).

The Middle English transferred sense was "producing, promoting, or characterized by growth, animating, vivifying." In medieval philosophy and theology also "pertaining to the lowest level of soul, which gives bodily life, drives reproduction, etc." (early 15c.). Later the word was used in reference to animals, noting functions, processes, and other vital phenomena that act unconsciously or involuntarily (healing, digestion, reproduction) and are common to plants and animals, as distinguished from sensation, volition, etc. that seem exclusive to animals.

Hence the modern pathological sense of "brain-dead, lacking intellectual activity, mentally inert" (1893), via the notion of having only such functions common also to vegetable growth. Cockeram's "English Dictionarie" (1623) has Vegetive "Which liveth as plants do."

wort(n.)

an old word applied to any plant, herb, vegetable, root, etc., Old English wyrt "root, herb, vegetable, plant, spice," from Proto-Germanic *wurtiz (source also of Old Saxon wurt, Old Norse, Danish urt, Old High German wurz "plant, herb," German Wurz, Gothic waurts, Old Norse rot "root"), from PIE root *wrād- "branch, root."

Archaic from mid-17c. but common in old herb-names (St. John's wort attested from 15c.) the broad application of the word can make it difficult to identify what plant is meant.