Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a vegetable.

1972		Harper’s Mag. Feb. 80: He pushes away his cole slaw. [...] ‘I can’t eat vegies.’.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 11: Two schooners, a slice of rump with plenty of vegies [etc.].
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 142: It’s curried vegies for breakfast [...] curried vegies and noodles for lunch and curried vegies and cheese for tea.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 276: Buffet with a salad bar and steamed veggies, fried chicken if you want it.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 98: Most of the veggies on display here I grow meself.
2011		IOL News 5 Dec. 🌐 Veggies go down well if puréed.
2018		R. O’Neill ‘Ocker’ in The Drover’s Wives (2019) 180: Her four ankle-biters mucking around out in the vegie patch.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 23: You didn’t drag me out of the vegy room for nothing.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 32: One morning a passer by, a slap happy what d’ y’ care sort, called over my front vegie garden.
1997		J. Birmingham Tasmanian Babes Fiasco (1998) 69: Missie [...] pushed past me to get at the veggie crisper.
2012		L. Redhead ‘Grassed’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] The kids [...] were playing in the veggie garden.

3. a vegetarian.

1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1981		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 7: veggie – vegetarian.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 405: vegetable. A dull or brain-damaged person; on college campuses, the epithet may be shortened to veggie (which also stands for vegetarian).
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 86: Some pukish-lookin’ asparagus dip one of the veggies was passin’ around.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 421: Some bland steamed fish which I shouldn’t eat as I’m a veggie.

4. a person reduced to a vegetative state.

1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 405: vegetable. A dull or brain-damaged person; on college campuses, the epithet may be shortened to veggie (which also stands for vegetarian).
1993		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read How to Shoot Friends 130: The victim couldn’t tell on me — he was alive, but half a vegie.

5. (Irish) a derog. term for a physically or mentally disabled child.

1996

Irish Times 9 Apr. n.p.: Already it is common for children who avail of the services of a remedial teacher in ordinary schools to be known as the ‘veggies’. You can just imagine what children with a serious disability would be called [BS].