Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The plants of an area or a region; plant life.
  • noun The act or process of vegetating.
  • noun Medicine An abnormal growth on a body part.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In phytogeography, the sum total, or a local aggregate, of plant individuals, often of many species, viewed with reference to their ecological adjustment to each other and to all the efficient factors of their environment: contrasted with flora, which denotes a scheme of species rather than a sum of individuals.
  • noun The act or process of vegetating; the process of growing exhibited by plants.
  • noun Plants collectively: as, luxuriant vegetation.
  • noun In pathology, an excrescence or growth on any surface of the body.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act or process of vegetating, or growing as a plant does; vegetable growth.
  • noun The sum of vegetable life; vegetables or plants in general.
  • noun (Med.) An exuberant morbid outgrowth upon any part, especially upon the valves of the heart.
  • noun (Old Chem.) a crystalline growth of an arborescent form.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable Plants, taken collectively.
  • noun pathology, countable An abnormal verrucous or fibrinous growth

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun all the plant life in a particular region or period
  • noun an abnormal growth or excrescence (especially a warty excrescence on the valves of the heart)
  • noun inactivity that is passive and monotonous, comparable to the inactivity of plant life
  • noun the process of growth in plants

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French végétation.

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Examples

  • Hence genus and species stand in subaltern relation, and whatever is true of the genus is true of the species: If _All animal life is dependent on vegetation, All human life is dependent on vegetation_.

    Logic Deductive and Inductive Carveth Read 1889

  • During May through December, the vegetation is a lush jungle green, offering a great variety of eco-tourism activities to give you full contact with the wonders of nature.

    Bahias de Huatulco, Oaxaca 2006

  • During May through December, the vegetation is a lush jungle green, offering a great variety of eco-tourism activities to give you full contact with the wonders of nature.

    Bahias de Huatulco, Oaxaca 2006

  • It's formed by walls at least 50 yards high that look like flat-topped hills, tapering from roughly 65 yards thick at their base to 45 yards at their tops, which are covered in vegetation and trees.

    Toxic Sludge Could Spill Again, Hungary Government Warns AP 2010

  • It's formed by walls at least 50 yards high that look like flat-topped hills, tapering from roughly 65 yards thick at their base to 45 yards at their tops, which are covered in vegetation and trees.

    Toxic Sludge Could Spill Again, Hungary Government Warns AP 2010

  • Arizona vegetation is tough and extremely well defended (as anyone knows who has brushed carelessly against a prickly-pear cactus).

    Boing Boing 2009

  • The surrounding vegetation is dense and thick, including a thousand shades of green, hundreds of dancing palm trees, giant lime trees, mahogany trees, and an abundance of papaya, mango, banana trees.

    Los Ayala: undiscovered gem on the Nayarit coast 2009

  • It's formed by walls at least 50 yards high that look like flat-topped hills, tapering from roughly 65 yards thick at their base to 45 yards at their tops, which are covered in vegetation and trees.

    Toxic Sludge Could Spill Again, Hungary Government Warns AP 2010

  • The predominant vegetation is agave under cultivation -- occasionally on the steepest of hillsides -- and mixed brush, with pole cactus and palm interspersed.

    A driving tour from Oaxaca to San Cristobal de las Casas and Palenque: Part One 2009

  • The predominant vegetation is agave under cultivation -- occasionally on the steepest of hillsides -- and mixed brush, with pole cactus and palm interspersed.

    A driving tour from Oaxaca to San Cristobal de las Casas and Palenque: Part One 2009

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