Vegetarianism

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /vɛd͡ʒɪˈtɛɹi.ənɪzəm/

Definitions

1. A dietary practice in which people abstain from eating meat and sometimes other animal products
2. A lifestyle choice focused on the abstention from meat consumption and often the exclusion of other animal-derived foods
3. A personal or ethical commitment to avoid meat and frequently other animal-origin products in dietary habits

Etymology: The word "vegetarian" was coined in England in the 1840s, when the Bible-inspired diet of vegetables and grains had long been practised by small groups under other names. The earliest known use of "vegetarianism" in English dates to about 1847, the year the British Vegetarian Society was founded in Ramsgate, and the new word simply named the organised movement that the society represented. The ending "-ism" is an old and flexible suffix, borrowed through Latin from Greek "-ismos", that turns a noun or adjective into a name for a doctrine, practice or system of belief, as in "Methodism" or "socialism". Attaching it to "vegetarian" therefore produced a term for the principle behind the diet rather than the diet itself.

Synonyms: plant-based diet, herbivorism

Antonyms: carnivorism, meat-eating