Pea is a pulse, vegetable or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species, formerly 'Pisum sativum', it has been proposed to rename the species as Lathyrus oleraceus. Each pod contains several seeds (peas), which can have green or yellow cotyledons when mature. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and develop from the ovary of a (pea) flower. The name is also used to describe other edible seeds from the Fabaceae such as the pigeon pea, the cowpea, the seeds from several species of Lathyrus and is used as a compound form for example Sturt's desert pea.

The Fabaceae or Leguminosae, commonly known as the legume, pea, or bean family, are a large and agriculturally important family of flowering plants. It includes trees, shrubs, and perennial or annual herbaceous plants, which are easily recognized by their fruit (legume) and their compound, stipulate leaves. The family is widely distributed, and is the third-largest land plant family in number of species, behind only the Orchidaceae and Asteraceae, with about 765 genera and nearly 20,000 known species.