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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
vegetate
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ When I retired I didn't want to just vegetate.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ After frittering away her fortune, she vegetated alone in her Paris flat.
▪ Either you vegetate and look out the window or you get busy and try to effect change.
▪ If I must vegetate, I'd rather do so at home, in spite of the undoubtedly superior ménage here.
▪ It is specially important not to let him vegetate in front of the television for long periods.
▪ Resting, sleeping and generally vegetating are obvious ways of unwinding.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Vegetate

Vegetate \Veg"e*tate\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Vegetated; p. pr. & vb. n. Vegetating.] [L. vegetatus, p. p. of vegetare to enliven. See Vegetable.]

  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. Fig.: To lead a live too low for an animate creature; to do nothing but eat and grow.
    --Cowper.

    Persons who . . . would have vegetated stupidly in the places where fortune had fixed them.
    --Jeffrey.

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

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
vegetate

c.1600, "to grow as plants do," perhaps a back-formation from vegetation, or from Latin vegetatus, past participle of vegetare "to enliven, to animate" (see vegetable (adj.)). Sense of "to lead a dull, empty, or stagnant life" is from 1740. Related: Vegetated; vegetating.

Wiktionary
vegetate

vb. 1 (context of a plant English) To grow or sprout. 2 (context of a wart etc English) To spread abnormally. 3 (context informal English) To live or spend a period of time in a dull, inactive, unchallenging way.

WordNet
vegetate
  1. v. lead a passive existence without using one's body or mind

  2. establish vegetation on; "They vegetated the hills behind their house"

  3. produce vegetation; "The fields vegetate vigorously"

  4. grow like a plant; "This fungus usually vegetates vigorously"

  5. grow or spread abnormally; "warts and polyps can vegetate if not removed"

  6. propagate asexually; "The bacterial growth vegetated along"

  7. engage in passive relaxation; "After a hard day's work, I vegetate in front of the television" [syn: vege out]

Usage examples of "vegetate".

A company of soldiers vegetates in quarters in a yet sleepier region than the town itself.

It was less like walking along a road than over a sparsely vegetated ridge.

Even on this ledge of human society there was a stunted growth of shoplets, which had taken root and vegetated somehow, though as in an air mercantile of the bleakest.

When the herd draws itself together in arms against the stranger it is a fall for those rare free spirits who love the whole world, but it raises the many who weakly vegetate in anarchistic egotism, and lifts them to that higher stage of organised selfishness.

So, must it be the fate of all our foot to sit and vegetate between drilling and endlessly repolishing unused weapons?

A municipal signpost incongruously vegetated behind the tail of the left lion, the crossed plaques indicating that this was the corner of Wise Road and Old Creek Road.

George: I thought you two would still be aestivating at a more popular location, letting your minds vegetate while our charmingly unpretentious hosts waited on your every biological need.

For Versilov himself, ever since the 1840s when he so lightheartedly discarded the traditional values of his forefathers, has been vegetating in a moral vacuum.

These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of Pavonia, being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled to have sprung from oysters.

Reputed to be the hottest place on earth, it is a land of geographic extremes, where gray mountains suddenly rise like fortress walls from broad rocky grasslands, and oceans of sparsely vegetated lowlands marry vast seas of sand.

So, must it be the fate of all our foot to sit and vegetate between drilling and endlessly repolishing unused weapons?

Several distinguished doctors have remonstrated against the influence of this second nature, both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who turn a crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly.

But those had showed no signs of occupation, past or present, even by the local wildlife which apparently favoured forested and vegetated areas.

The sequence we would expect to see, therefore, would be nearshore sands with glauconite, then beach or barrier island sand, then a lagoon with vegetated tidal flats, and finally the mainland.

He became acquainted with a neighbor, Senator Lacour, who twice had been Minister of State, and was now vegetating in the senate, silent during its sessions, but restless and voluble in the corridors in order to maintain his influence.