Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

Answer 1

Tomato is basically a fruit but is used as vegetable

Answer 2

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The world really has two different meanings for the word fruit. There is the use of the word when you go to the grocery store, and then there's the use of the word by a botanist.

In the grocery store, we generally understand a fruit to be a natural plant product that is sweet, and a vegetable to be a natural plant product that is not sweet. In this standard definition, apples, strawberries, grapes and bananas are all fruits, while green beans, tomatoes, squash and potatoes are all vegetables.

Technically, however, this layman's definition is a bit off. The Encyclopedia Britannica sums it up like this:

Fruit - in its strict botanical sense, the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a plant, enclosing the seed or seeds. Thus, apricots, bananas, and grapes, as well as bean pods, corn grains, tomatoes, cucumbers, and (in their shells) acorns and almonds, are all technically fruits.
This definition of fruit is very broad, and encompasses almost everything that contains seeds.
Vegetables, then, are everything that's left. This includes:

Root crops like potatoes, carrots and turnips
Bulbs like onions and garlic
Stems like asparagus
Leaves like lettuce and cabbage
Flowers like broccoli and cauliflower
In other words, things that do not contain seeds are vegetables, in the technical sense. Everything else is a fruit.

Answer 3

Come on people, it is obviously both. Technically it is a fruit, but then some fruits are called vegetables.

veg-e-ta-ble –noun

1. any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food, as the tomato, bean, beet, potato, onion, asparagus, spinach, or cauliflower.
2. the edible part of such a plant, as the tuber of the potato.
3. any member of the vegetable kingdom; plant.
4. Informal. a person who is so severely impaired mentally or physically as to be largely incapable of conscious responses or activity.
5. a dull, spiritless, and uninteresting person.
–adjective 6. of, consisting of, or made from edible vegetables: a vegetable diet.
7. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of plants: the vegetable kingdom.
8. derived from plants: vegetable fiber; vegetable oils.
9. consisting of, comprising, or containing the substance or remains of plants: vegetable matter; a vegetable organism.
10. of the nature of or resembling a plant: the vegetable forms of Art Nouveau ornament.
11. inactive; inert; dull; uneventful: a vegetable existence.

Answer 4

The tomato is a fruit.

Answer 5

a tomato is a fruit because it has seeds. Vegetable are vegetative/ non reproductive parts of plants.

Answer 6

Tomatoes contain seeds. They are a fruit

Answer 7

Scientifically speaking, a tomato is definitely a fruit.

Answer 8

It is technically a fruit, but is used in cooking as a vegetable.

Answer 9

tomato is a fruit

Answer 10

its both a fruit and a vegetable. Depending on what way u see it.