Vegetarianism
Etymology
There is a claim that “vegetarianism” derives not from the English word “vegetable,” but from the Latin “vegetus,” meaning whole, sound, fresh, or lively. Here is what I found when investigating it.
1847: The Vegetarian Society in Britain
In his 1975 book Animal Liberation, Peter Singer explains the origin of “vegetarianism” as follows.
The term “vegetarian” came into general use as a result of the formation of the Vegetarian Society in English in 1847.
No source is given for this claim. But the Oxford English Dictionary contains very similar wording (“the general use of the word appears to have been largely due formation of the Vegetarian Society at Ramsgate in 1847”), so perhaps he consulted that dictionary.
In her 1990 book The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol J. Adams also explains that the word came into wide use around 1847.
Until 1847 and the self-conscious coining of the word “vegetarian,” the most common appellation to describe those who did not eat animals was the term “Pythagorean.”
The proposed Latin origin
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the English word “vegetable” as the origin. According to Adams, however, vegetarians opposed this English etymology.
Vegetarians hold to a different etymology. They argue that it is from the Latin word vegetus, meaning whole, sound, fresh or lively, …
This passage comes from a discussion of coining new words to resist existing language that reflects the structures of patriarchal domination, and struggling to prevent their meanings from being diluted. Reading Adams as charitably as possible in context, I think she can be understood as saying that vegetarians at the time worked to invest “vegetarianism” with these meanings and preserve them, rather than claiming this was the word’s actual etymology.
Some books, however, seem to insist too firmly on a Latin origin and distort the history. For example, Joan Sbaté’s Vegetarian Nutrition explicitly describes the term as having been “coined” from Latin at the 1847 meeting.
On September 30, 1847, meat abstainers from all parts of England convened in Ramsgate, Kent to found The Vegetarian Society, It was at this organizational meeting that the term “vegetarian” was minted, from the Latin “vegetus” …
According to Rod Preece’s 2008 book Sin of the Flesh: A History of Ethical Vegetarian Thought, this claim is highly unlikely to be true, since the society was already called the “Vegetarian Society” before the term was supposedly coined at its first meeting. Some books and magazines in the 1830s also used “vegetarian” without further explanation.
Francis William Newman
According to Preece, Francis William Newman was the first to propose the Latin origin. Newman joined the society in 1868 and served as president for ten years from 1873. It is unclear, however, whether Newman actually claimed that “vegetarian” originated from Latin vegetus, or tried to change its meaning by treating it as derived from vegetus despite its actual origin in “vegetable.”
Henry S. Salt’s The Logic of Vegetarianism includes an imaginary dialogue assuming the latter situation.
No one has a better right to speak on this matter than Professor J. E. B. Mayor, the great Latin scholar, and he states that, looking at the word etymologically, “vegetarian” cannot mean “an eater of vegetables.” It is derived from vegetus … Mind, I am not saying that the originators of the term “vegetarian” had this meaning in view. …
Summary
It seems true that around the 1840s there was a movement to change the word’s meaning by treating it as derived from Latin vegetus. History contains many examples of attempts to change or extend existing words’ meanings to resist unjust social oppression and discrimination. I see the proposed Latin etymology of “vegetarian” as part of such efforts.
The claim made by some that “the word vegetarian was first coined in 1847 from the Latin vegetus,” however, seems very likely false. It was not coined in 1847, and its origin is unlikely to be vegetus.