to vegetate
1
6.3
- verb
- /ˈvɛdʒɪˌteɪt/
- Informal
:
vegetar
- During the rainy weekend, we decided to vegetate and watch movies all day.
- just vegetate
- sit and vegetate
Fewer people realize that our present tax and welfare structure is such as to encourage the wealthy to speculate and the poor to vegetate.
- Fewer people realize that our present tax and welfare structure is such as to encourage the wealthy to speculate and the poor to vegetate.
Examples
-
Ylith had been vegetating for a long while before she was called up by Azzie.
Fiction book (1991) -
People who vegetate in front of the TV are killing their neurons.
Academic text (2010) -
You just sit there and vegetate.
Academic text (2007) -
I have two kids, so I don't get to vegetate and ruin my brain with hours and hours of football every weekend, like I did before I had kids.
Blog text (25) -
But there's something I've gotta take care of, and I can't do it by vegetating here in this store.
-
She told herself she deserved a month to vegetate, to wallow in self-pity, if that's what she felt like doing.
Fiction book (1999) -
How effective and efficient is an economy that sees the production and export of huge amounts of food from Third World countries as feed for European livestock while the local population vegetates under the subsistence level and, to some extent, even starves?
Academic text (2018) -
The clergy opens its ranks to all, to the poor and to the rich, to the commoner and to the lord; equality begins to penetrate through the church to the heart of government, and he who would have vegetated as a serf in eternal slavery takes his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and will often take a seat above kings.
Academic text (2001) -
After a long week at work, I just want to go home and vegetate on the couch.
-
During the summer break, he plans to vegetate by the pool without any responsibilities.
Synonyms
888
1.5
Spend time without any activity
350
1.1
To spend time sitting and doing very little without a clear purpose
43
3.7
To spend time doing nothing useful
7
4.3
To spend time relaxing and doing very little
2
7.7
To spend time doing nothing useful
2
8.1
To relax and do nothing, often sitting and watching TV
1
3.4
To spend time lazily doing little or nothing
1
3.2
To spend time doing nothing
Antonyms
How Active
12
2.7
- Informal
1
6.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
vegetate = vegetation (semi-transparent) = veget + ate
The sense 'to be inactive like a plant' is a metaphorical extension from 'vegetation' and is inferable but not fully literal.
Etymology
A helpful way to remember the figurative sense of vegetate is to think of vegetable, a word from the same root; the image of being quiet and passive led people to use vegetate to mean 'do nothing' or 'be idle'.