Meaning

noun edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant

noun any of various herbaceous plants cultivated for an edible part such as the fruit or the root of the beet or the leaf of spinach or the seeds of bean plants or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflowe

originFrom 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0