Biology dictionary

vegetate

1. To grow, as plants, by nutriment imbibed by means of roots and leaves; to start into growth; to sprout; to germinate. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again. (pope)

2. To lead a live too low for an animate creature; to do nothing but eat and grow. Persons who . . . Would have vegetated stupidly in the places where fortune had fixed them. (Jeffrey)

3. (Science: medicine) To grow exuberantly; to produce fleshy or warty outgrowths; as, a vegetating papule.

Origin: L. Vegetatus, p. P. Of vegetare to enliven. See Vegetable.