[f. L. vegetāt-, ppl. stem of vegetāre to animate, enliven, f. vegetus active, lively, vigorous: see VEGETE a.]
1. intr. Of plants, seeds, etc.: To exercise or exhibit vegetative faculties or functions; to grow or develop, or begin to do so.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. x. 38. You might see … the manifest forme of a rose, vegetating and growing.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 27. A Plant … vegetates; that is to say … it nourishes itself, shoots, increases in size, and produces Leaves, Flowers, and Seeds.
1765. A. Dickson, Treat. Agric. (ed. 2), 97. Seeds will not vegetate without air.
1791. W. Gilpin, Forest Scenery, II. 107. A young oak, just vegetating from the acorn.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 627. The plants being well earthed up, vegetate with increased luxuriance.
1838. T. Thomson, Chem. Org. Bodies, 859. The leaves [of the tea-plant] are not fit to be pulled till the shrub has vegetated for three years.
1852. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. (1857), xviii. 263. The sun in autumn may be bright and clear, but the seed which has not been sown until then will not vegetate.
transf. and fig. 1706–7. Farquhar, Beaux’ Strat., Prol. A weed that has to twenty summers ran, Shoots up in stalk, and vegetates to man.
1733. Pope, Ess. Man, III. 16. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving, vegetate again.
1792. Burke, Corr. (1844), III. 408. That corruption has cast deep roots in that party, and they vegetate in it … every day with greater and greater force.
1836. I. Taylor, Phys. The. Another Life xiii. 173. Such dispositions … are living powers; they vegetate, and cover the entire surface of the soul.
b. transf. To increase as if by, to present the appearance of, vegetable growth.
1744. Berkeley, Siris, § 177. All parts of the world vegetate by a fine subtle æther.
1782. Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 79. They vegetate, if solutions of both metals [i.e., silver and mercury] in the same acid be mixed together.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 501. Naturalists have observed that ore in swamps and pondy ground vegetates and increases.
1823. Ure, Dict. Chem., s.v. Vegetation (Saline), When salts are suffered to vegetate in this manner [etc.].
1895. Funk’s Stand. Dict., Vegetate,… as a wart or pimple; [to] produce excrescences.
c. To produce vegetation.
1799. Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 105. It is well known that beds of volcanic ashes and pumice vegetate sooner than any other.
2. fig. Of persons: To live a merely physical life; to lead a dull, monotonous existence, devoid of intellectual activity or social intercourse; to live in dull retirement or seclusion.
1740. Cibber, Apol. (1756), I. 18. The man who chuses never to laugh … seems to me only in the quiet state of a green tree; he vegetates, tis true, but shall we say he lives?
1777. G. Forster, Voy. round World, I. 542. In short, we rather vegetated than lived.
1800. Mrs. Hervey, Mourtray Fam., I. 25. He repaired with his family … to vegetate (as they called it) at Wilmington Park.
1860. Adler, Prov. Poet, xvii. 380. Weary … of the obscurity in which he vegetated he resolved to apply himself to the culture of poetry.
1886. W. J. Tucker, E. Europe, 252. The family was vegetating in dingy privacy in an Austrian provincial town on the shattered remnants of what had once been a princely fortune.
b. Of a country, nation, etc.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 294. The Polish nation might, after having vegetated so long in obscurity [etc.].
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., VII. vi. (1849), 407. The vast empire of China … has vegetated through a succession of drowsy ages.
1832. trans. Sismondi’s Ital. Rep., xv. 341. The republics of Genoa, Sienna, and Lucca had permission to vegetate under the imperial protection.
1851. Kossuth, in Daily News, 22 March (1894), 5/6. The House of Hapsburg, as a dynasty, exists no more. It merely vegetates at the whim of the mighty Czar.
† 3. trans. To cause to grow; to stimulate growth or development in; to animate, quicken. Obs.
1620. T. Granger, Div. Logike, A 4 b. The Roote, whose sappe doth vegetate the rest.
1646. J. Hall, Horæ Vac., 79. The continuing and placing of Ideas … doth greatly quicken and vegetate the Invention.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 347. This Sensible World, is the Receptacle of all Forms, Qualities, and Bodies, all which cannot be vegetated and quickned without God.
absol. 1671. H. M., trans. Erasm. Colloq., 300. Therefore in some parts it [the soul] animates only, and vegetates.
† 4. To make strong or vigorous. Obs.–0
1623. in Cockeram.
5. To provide or supply with vegetables (see quot.). rare–1.
1838. Parker, Exploring Tour beyond Rocky Mts. (1846), 386. Our stay at Tahiti was employed by the ship’s crew … in vegetating the ship, as they phrase it; that is, in collecting oranges, bananas, sweet potatoes,… yams and squashes.
6. In pa. pple. Provided with vegetation or plant-life. Usually with qualifying adv.
1876. Nature, 9 Nov., 31/1. The head of the bay, which appeared from the distance to be well vegetated.
1892. Pall Mall G., 25 Nov., 6/1. New Amsterdam … is densely vegetated, and consequently more valuable.
Hence Vegetated ppl. a.; Vegetating vbl. sb.
1775. Ash, Vegetating, the state or act of growing like plants.
1804–20. Blake, Jerus., To Deists, Your Greek Philosophy, which is a remnant of Druidism, teaches that Man is righteous in his Vegetated Spectre.
1884. E. P. Roe, Nat. Ser. Story, ii. Frequent removal from one part of the country to another prevents anything like vegetating.
