Legume definition

The pod or seed of some members of this order, used for food.

A plant of the pea family.

Any of an order (Fabales) of dicotyledonous herbs, shrubs, and trees, including the peas, beans, mimosas, and the Kentucky coffee tree, with usually compound leaves, flowers having a single carpel, and fruit that is a dry pod splitting along two sutures: many legumes are nitrogen-fixing and often are used as green manure and for forage.

Any of a large number of eudicot plants belonging to the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae). Their characteristic fruit is a seed pod. Legumes live in a symbiotic relationship with bacteria in structures called nodules on their roots. These bacteria are able to take nitrogen from the air, which is in a form that plants cannot use, and convert it into compounds that the plants can use. Many legumes are widely cultivated for food, as fodder for livestock, and as a means of improving the nitrogen content of soils. Beans, peas, clover, alfalfa, locust trees, and acacia trees are all legumes.

The definition of a legume is a pod or pea plant, or the seed of such a plant.

A pod of such a plant, which splits into two valves with the seeds attached to one edge of the valves.

Such a pod or seed used as food. Peas, beans, and lentils are legumes.

The seed pod of such a plant.

The fruit or seed of leguminous plants (as peas or beans) used for food.