vegetate

American  

[vej-i-teyt] / ˈvɛdʒ ɪˌteɪt /

verb (used without object)

• vegetates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• vegetated,
  past participle,  past
• vegetating
  present participle

1. to grow in, or as in, the manner of a plant.

2. to be passive or unthinking; to do nothing.

   to lie on the beach and vegetate.

3. Pathology. to grow, or increase by growth, as an excrescence.

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vegetate British  

/ ˈvɛdʒɪˌteɪt /

verb

1. to grow like a plant; sprout

2. to lead a life characterized by monotony, passivity, or mental inactivity

3. pathol (of a wart, polyp, etc) to develop fleshy outgrowths

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

• vegetating
  present
• vegetated
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• vegetate
  simple
• vegetates
  simple
• have vegetated
  perfect
• has vegetated
  perfect
• am vegetating
  progressive
• are vegetating
  progressive
• is vegetating
  progressive
• have been vegetating
  perfect progressive
• has been vegetating
  perfect progressive

Past

• vegetated
  simple
• had vegetated
  perfect
• was vegetating
  progressive
• were vegetating
  progressive
• had been vegetating
  perfect progressive

Future

• will vegetate
  simple
• will have vegetated
  perfect
• will be vegetating
  progressive
• will have been vegetating
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of vegetate

1595–1605; < Latin vegetātus (past participle of vegetāre to quicken, enliven), equivalent to veget ( us ) lively (originally past participle of vegēre to give vigor) + -ātus -ate ¹

Explanation

When plants vegetate, they spread. When people vegetate, they relax. After a long day, if you want to vegetate or exert no effort in your body or mind, try sitting in front of the TV for hours. The word vegetate has opposite meanings depending on whether you're talking about plants or people. When vegetables vegetate, they proliferate or spread really quickly. When a person vegetates, he remains completely idle. A person in a vegetative state is not able to function, only to vegetate or remain completely inactive.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

vegetate vegetates vegetated vegetating

He used to come home from a hard practice and vegetate on the couch, shattered by exhaustion.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2025

Made up of local efforts across 11 countries, it has reached just 16% of its overall goal to vegetate 150 million hectares.

From Science Magazine ● Feb. 11, 2021

During her many spells in hospital she didn't want to sit on her bed and "vegetate."

From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2020

Birds arrive and leave droppings that help vegetate the future dunes.

From New York Times ● Dec. 30, 2011

So mostly I just vegetate in the basement and pick my navel, to quote Grim, Mr. Belly Button Lint himself.

From "Freak The Mighty" by Rodman Philbrick

In his eyes, the success of a thing answers for its quality, and the charlatanism that succeeds is superior to the merit that vegetates.

From Jonathan and His Continent Rambles Through American Society by Jack Allyn

So that in certain Parts of the Body it only animates and vegetates.

From Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. by Desiderius Erasmus

It suggests no more enterprises to the decrepitude of age, which vegetates along, drawing interest merely on the investment of its earlier enterprises.

From The Letters of William James, Vol. II by William James

It is a region of desert mountains, where frost and snow continually reign, where the sun never shines, no plant vegetates, and no animal lives.

From The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 by Henry Yule

"One vegetates elsewhere, one lives only in Paris," added her husband, "and perhaps a little in London."

From The Jew by Jo?zef Ignacy Kraszewski

Flash floods are common in Northern Arizona because the arid, sparsely vegetated environments there have little capacity to absorb rain, the park's website said, urging visitors to be especially cautious from July to mid-September.

From Barron's ● Aug. 31, 2026

Its landscapes include grasslands, lagoons, heathland and vegetated shingle, which supports a range of creatures, flora and fauna - not just birds.

From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026

Capybaras aren’t native to Mexico; they are South American, occupying savannas and vegetated areas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026

Crews will be installing steel girders — long boxes of reinforced concrete — over the freeway in order to build the vegetated bridge, according to Caltrans.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2024

Native Mexican women dressed in pale tunics slid their paddles into the lake and rowed slowly, serenely across the water toward what could only be described as densely vegetated islands floating on the water.

From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall

Even in that condition he went to law offices in Atlanta every day he could, chiefly to keep from vegetating.

From Golf Digest ● Mar. 23, 2020

And without work he and his wife began to feel that they were vegetating.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 15, 2017

“You said we don’t want people vegetating in public housing. Those comments were concerning to me,” remarked freshman Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2017

Far from vegetating, those at the Metropolitan Playhouse pirouette, leap, cartwheel and even do the can-can and the highland fling.

From New York Times ● Feb. 16, 2012

Otherwise you’re nobody, nothing, a potato vegetating in your seven-by-ten limbo.

From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote