Vegetarian
nounA person who does not eat meat or fish, living mainly on plant-based foods.
How to spell vegetarian
10 letters · 5 syllables
How to pronounce vegetarian
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does vegetarian mean?
- nounA person who does not eat meat or fish, living mainly on plant-based foods.
- adjectiveRelating to or suitable for people who do not eat meat or fish.
Vegetarian in a sentence
-
noun
As a vegetarian, she always checks the menu for meat-free options.
-
adjective
The cafe offers a full vegetarian breakfast made entirely from plants.
-
noun
The restaurant added a dedicated section for every vegetarian in the group.
-
adjective
They ordered a vegetarian lasagne layered with roasted courgette.
Where does vegetarian come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word grew out of the older 'vegetable', which traces back to the Latin vegetabilis, meaning 'able to grow or flourish', from vegetare 'to enliven or quicken' and ultimately vegetus 'lively, vigorous, fresh'. The same Latin family gives us 'vigour' and 'vegetate', so the root idea is really about liveliness rather than just plants. 'Vegetarian' itself is a modern English coinage from the mid 1800s, formed by adding the suffix -arian (as in 'librarian' or 'humanitarian', meaning a person associated with something) to the stem of 'vegetable'. The word gained currency around 1847, the year the Vegetarian Society was founded in England. Because the middle of the word is built on 'vegetable', remembering that link helps with the often-dropped second 'e' and the schwa-sounding 'a' before the 'r' that trips writers up.
How the word is built
- veget- (from Latin vegetus, lively or fresh)
- -arian (one who follows or believes in)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.