vegetarian n.

mid-15c., "non-animal life," originally any plant, from vegetable (adj.); specific sense of "plant cultivated for food, edible herb or root" is first recorded 1767. Meaning "person who leads a monotonous life" is recorded from 1921; sense of "one totally incapacitated mentally and physically" is from 1976.

The Old English word was wyrt (see wort). The commonest source of words for vegetables in Indo-European languages are derivatives of words for "green" or "growing" (compare Italian, Spanish verdura, Irish glasraidh, Danish grøntsager). For a different association, compare Greek lakhana, related to lakhaino "to dig."

1610s, "relating to the land," from French agrarienne, from Latin agrarius "of the land," from ager (genitive agri) "a field" (from PIE root *agro- "field").

The specialized meaning "having to do with cultivated land" is recorded by 1792. Originally, and often subsequently, "pertaining to the division or sharing of landed property," which was the Roman sense. Earlier in English as agrarie (1530s), from Latin agraria. As a noun, by 1650s ("Oceana") as "an agrarian law;" by 1818 as "one in favor of redistribution of landed property."