Esculents

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Referring to edible plants or substances, especially those that are cultivated for consumption
2. Denoting items or crops that are suitable for eating, particularly in agriculture or culinary contexts
3. Characterizing various types of food sources that are fit for human or animal consumption

Etymology: "Esculents" is the plural of "esculent," a noun for edible plants or substances, and its story starts with food rather than with anything grown in a field. The Latin "ēsca" meant food, a dish prepared for the table, or even bait, and it traces back to an ancient root meaning "to eat." Latin speakers attached the suffix "-ulentus," meaning "abounding in" or "full of," to form "ēsculentus," so the adjective literally meant something like "full of food" or "fit for eating." English took the word directly from Latin as a learned borrowing, adding the English suffix "-ent" to give it an adjectival ending. The "-ent" ending in English typically marks a word as an adjective expressing a quality or action, which is why the adjective was used first and the noun grew out of it. Over time the word narrowed from a broad sense of anything nourishing to a more specific sense of plants and substances cultivated for eating.