Surely this has happened to you. You live and think that everything is quite good. There is work, a little money, and then you meet a classmate, and he turns out to be spinning a business, visiting resorts and sanatoriums. And then it covers you: "Yes, how can you vegetate like that, it's indecent," you think. But the verb is not so bad. And soon we will see this.
Origin
Of course, the object of research is primarily associated with some kind of dullness. If a person has no work, and he is interrupted by casual earnings and cannot really afford anything. If he works on a small, boring job, and his condition is mostly depressive. After all, one can say that he vegetates? This is only half true. On the one hand, yes, a person is the smith of his own happiness, and if he does not like something, then this parameter is almost objective. On the other hand, man is also the smith of his misfortune, that is, we are all able to forge a cage for ourselves and settle in it.
But initially such negative connotations were not supposed. The verb related to plant life and denoted a positive process - rooting or buds. To vegetate is to "grow, grow." Comes from all-Slavic zebati.
By the way, an association with phraseologism suggests itself here: “a lying stone with moss overgrows”. In other words, a person should not, like a stone or a plant, stay in one place, he should seek opportunities and develop.
Value
Of course, we know how to vegetate. Not by example, of course (and even if so, no one will confess), but according to written sources. But most people still do not have a clear idea. So, let's look into the explanatory dictionary: "Lead a miserable, poor or meaningless, aimless life."
Probably the most obvious example is Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, the hero of the story “Overcoat” by N. V. Gogol. But on the other hand, such characters are generally full of Russian literature. At Dostoevsky, such heroes are found on almost every page. True, you can even sympathize with Marmeladov, but there is no A. A. Bashmachkin. Although this is a matter of taste, of course. Now you understand who you can become if you vegetate? This, of course, is of little consolation, but it allows you to keep your eyes open, vigilantly monitoring your own destiny.
Synonyms
Almost obsolete words need replacing. Well, let's provide the latter with a list:
All synonyms are taken in their figurative meaning. For example, with Samuel Becket in the work “Molloy,” the first verb from the list means an aimless existence. But adolescents probably need no such explanation. But here we are talking about the fact that such a speech revolution is not always slang.
Yes, a synonym for the word “vegetate” is sometimes difficult to pick up.