vegetable

英文词源

vegetable

vegetable: [14] Latin vegēre meant ‘be active’ (it was formed from the same Indo-European base as lies behind English vigil, vigour, and wake). From it was derived vegetus ‘active’, which in turn formed the basis of vegetāre ‘enliven, animate’. From this again came late Latin vegetābilis ‘enlivening’, which came to be applied specifically to plant growth.

It was in this sense that the word entered English (via Old French vegetable), and it was not further narrowed down to ‘plant grown for food’ until the 18th century. Its semantic descent from its original links with ‘life, liveliness’ was completed in the early 20th century, when vegetable came to be used for an ‘inactive person’. The derivative vegetarian was formed in the early 1840s, and vegan was coined from this around 1944.
=> vigil, vigour, wake

vegetable (adj.)

early 15c., "capable of life or growth; growing, vigorous;" also "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," from Latin vegetare "to enliven," from vegetus "vigorous, enlivened, active, sprightly," from vegere "to be alive, active, to quicken," from PIE *weg- (2) "be strong, lively," source of watch (v.), vigor, velocity, and possibly witch (see wake (v.)). The meaning "resembling that of a vegetable, dull, uneventful; having life such as a plant has" is attested from 1854 (see vegetable (n.)).

vegetable (n.)

mid-15c., "non-animal life," originally any plant, from vegetable (adj.); specific sense of "plant cultivated for food, edible herb or root" is first recorded 1767. 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."