What are the characteristics that determine a fruit and a vegetable /?

What constitutes a fruit being called a fruit and a veggie a veggie, Thank you.

In botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary鈥攖ogether with seeds鈥攐f a flowering plant.

Vegetable is a culinary term. Its definition has no scientific value, and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. Since "vegetable" is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in a plant part being a fruit botanically while still being considered a vegetable. In general, vegetables are thought of as being savoury, and not sweet (with some exceptions, such as rhubarb and pumpkin).

a fruit is sweeter than a veggie and has seeds but a pepper is a veggie and has seeds. I think that fruit grow on trees, bushes and vines and vegetables grow closer to the ground it dpends what you consider a veggie a potatoe is a tuber and pumpkins are a form of squash. I think it makes sense. Don't forget a tomato is a fruit not vegetable.

fruits have seeds, veggies dont.

A fruit is actually the sweet, ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant. A vegetable, in contrast, is an herbaceous plant cultivated for an edible part (seeds, roots, stems, leaves, bulbs, tubers, or nonsweet fruits). So, to be really nitpicky, a fruit could be a vegetable, but a vegetable could not be a fruit.

A fruit is the matured ovary of a flower, containing the seed. After fertilization takes place and the embryo (plantlet) has begun to develop, the surrounding ovule becomes the fruit. Yum. I won't go on about the four types of fruit--simple, aggregate, multiple and accessory--which explain things like berries and pineapples.

A vegetable is considered to be edible roots, tubers, stems, leaves, fruits, seeds, flower clusters, and other softer plant parts. In common usage, however, there is no exact distinction between a vegetable and a fruit. The usual example is the tomato, which is a fruit, but is eaten as a vegetable, as are cucumbers, peppers, melons, and squashes. The classification of plants as vegetables is largely determined by custom, culture, and usage.

Okay, now the part which may surprise you. A grain is described as the dry fruit of a cereal grass, such as the "seedlike fruits of the buckwheat and other plants, and the plants bearing such fruits." So, grain is also a fruit.

Which brings us to the nut. Yes, you guessed it, a nut is, in botany, "a dry, one-seeded, usually oily fruit." True nuts include the acorn, chestnut, and hazelnut. The term nut also refers to any seed or fruit with a hard, brittle covering around an edible kernel, like the peanut, which is really a legume. A legume is defined as "(the) name for any plant of the pulse family; more generally, any vegetable. Botanically, a legume--a pod that splits along two sides, with the seeds attached to one of the sutures--is the characteristic fruit of the pulse family." Say what? A "pulse" is "the common name for Leguminosae or Fabaceae, a large family of herbs, shrubs, and trees, also called the pea, or legume, family. " Please, make it stop!

So I guess we have learned today that just about everything is a fruit, unless of course, it's a vegetable or a legume. Aren't you glad you asked?

It has something to do with seeds, fruit has em vegies dont or something

It depends on what you mean. Biologically, a fruit is the usually soft part of the plant that contains the seeds. Vegetables are all the other parts of the plant--the leaves, stems, roots, etc.

But in terms of their use as food and in cooking, fruit refers to whole sweet parts of plants (usually *trees*), whereas vegetables are the parts that are *not* sweet.

well, I could be wrong but, most fruit grows on trees or bushes.veggies grow under or on the ground.