Emily Dickinson Lexicon

VEG'E-TO-AN'I-MAL, a.

Partaking of the nature both of vegetable and animal matter. Vegeto-animal matter, is a term formerly applied to vegetable gluten, which is found, in the seeds of certain plants, in a state of union with fecula or starch. It is remarkably elastic, and when dry, semi-transparent. By distillation it affords, like animal substances, ammonia, and an empyreumatic oil. – Cyc. Fourcroy.