dietary

dietary — adjective

1. connected with what a person or animal eats and drinks on a regular basis, inclu

1.adjectiveB1
Definition

connected with what a person or animal eats and drinks on a regular basis, including the types and amounts of food consumed.

Example

Sivan follows a strict dietary plan to manage her blood sugar levels.

collocation: dietary plan / dietary requirements

The hospital offers a range of dietary options for patients with different needs.

Common collocations
  • dietary plan
  • dietary requirements
  • dietary habits
  • dietary changes
  • dietary restrictions
  • dietary supplement
  • dietary fiber
  • dietary guidelines
Synonyms
  • nutritional

    wider scope — includes the value and chemical content of food, not just what is eaten

  • alimentary

    technical; relates specifically to the process of digestion and nourishment

  • dietetic

    specialised; used in professional contexts such as dietetics and clinical nutrition

Usage Note

Frequently used before a noun — you can say 'dietary needs' but not 'Her needs are dietary.' Common compounds include dietary supplement, dietary fiber, and dietary restriction.

Common Mistakes

I have some dietarys to follow.
I have some dietary rules to follow.
dietary is an adjective, not a noun.

dietary — noun

Word family

  • diet
    nounA1
  • diet
    verbB1
  • dieter
    nounB2
  • dietitian
    nounB2
  • dietetics
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

All three words relate to food and eating, but they differ in scope and context. Dietary is the broad, everyday adjective for anything connected with what a person eats — it appears in dietary habits, dietary requirements, and dietary supplements. Nutritional focuses on the value and chemical content of food (nutritional information, nutritional value) and is the standard term in food labelling and health science. Alimentary is a technical term connected with digestion (alimentary canal); you will almost never hear it outside biological or medical writing. Dietetic belongs to the professional field of dietetics and clinical nutrition — a dietitian prescribes a dietetic plan, but a supermarket labels its products 'dietary' or 'nutritional', not 'dietetic'. For general use, stick with dietary.

nutritional ↗alimentarydietetic

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • dietary supplement
  • dietary fiber
  • dietary restriction
  • dietary requirement

Prepositions

Etymology

LatinMedieval LatinFrenchEnglish

Dietary comes from the Latin word diaeta, meaning 'way of life' or 'daily routine,' which later shifted to mean 'daily food allowance.' Through Medieval Latin dietarius and French diétaire, it entered English in the 1600s. The adjective form appeared first, and the noun sense developed later in academic writing about nutrition.