Shanghai Lvsheng Industrial Co.,Ltd

The term "vegetable" generally means the edible parts of plants. The definition of the word is traditional rather than scientific, however, and therefore the usage of the word is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, as it is determined by individual cultural customs of food selection and food preparation.

Generally speaking, an herbaceous plant or plant part which is regularly eaten as unsweetened or salted food by humans is considered to be a vegetable.^{[citation needed]}Mushrooms belong to the biological kingdom Fungi, not the plant kingdom, and yet they are also generally considered to be vegetables, at least in the retail industry.

 Nuts, seeds, grains, herbs, spices and culinary fruits are usuallynot considered to be vegetables, even though all of them are edible parts of plants.

In general, vegetables are those plant parts that are regarded as being suitable to be part of savory or salted dishes, rather than sweet dishes.^{[citation needed]}However there are many exceptions, such as the pumpkin, which can be eaten as a vegetable in a savory dish, but which can also be sweetened and served in a pie as a dessert.

Some vegetables, such as carrots, bell peppers and celery, are eaten either raw or cooked; while others are eaten only when cooked.

A simplified Venn diagramshows the overlap in the terminology of "vegetables" in the culinary sense and "fruits" in the botanical sense.

"Vegetable" comes from the Latin vegetabilis (animated) and from vegetare (enliven), which is derived from vegetus (active), in reference to the process of a plant growing. This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European base *weg- or *wog-, which is also the source of the English wake, meaning "become (or stay) alert".

The word was first recorded in print in English in the 14th century. The meaning of "plant grown for food" was not established until the 18th century. 

The word is still sometimes used as an archaic literary term for any plant, as invegetable matter, vegetable kingdom.