Vegetable of a flowering plant. This is considerably different from the word's culinary meaning. While peaches, plums, and oranges are "fruit" in both senses, many items commonly called "vegetables", such as eggplants, bell peppers, and tomatoes, are botanically fruits. The question of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The court ruled unanimously in "Nix v. Hedden" that a tomato is correctly identified as, and thus taxed as, a vegetable, for the purposes of the Tariff of 1883 on imported produce. The court did acknowledge, however, that, botanically
Vegetable slang term "veggie". As an adjective, the word "vegetable" is used in scientific and technical contexts with a different and much broader meaning, namely of "related to plants" in general, edible or not—as in "vegetable matter", "vegetable kingdom", "vegetable origin", etc. The exact definition of "vegetable" may vary simply because of the many parts of a plant consumed as food worldwide—roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. The broadest definition is the word's use adjectivally to mean "matter of plant origin". More specifically, a vegetable may be defined as "any plant, part of which is used for food", a secondary