Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Vegetate

Vegetate , intransitive verb

[Latin vegetatus, past participle 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.
Figuratively: To lead a life 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.
(Medicine) To grow exuberantly; to produce fleshy or warty outgrowths; as, a vegetating papule.