olive

olive — noun

1. a small oval fruit, green when young and turning black as it ripens, with a shar

1.nounB1
Definition

a small oval fruit, green when young and turning black as it ripens, with a sharp salty taste; eaten whole or pressed to make cooking oil. The same word also names the silver-leaved tree it grows on, common around the Mediterranean.

Example

Nikos picked a black olive from the bowl and dropped it into his salad.

countable: a/an + olive (singular fruit)

The pizza was topped with feta cheese, sliced tomatoes, and a handful of green olives.

plural 'olives' as a food ingredient

Common collocations
  • green olive
  • black olive
  • stuffed olive
  • pitted olive
  • olive grove
  • olive branch

Grammar Patterns

a/the olive

olives (plural)

Usage Note

The same word covers both the small fruit and the tree that bears it; context (especially the verb and surrounding nouns) tells you which. With 'pick', 'eat', 'pit', or 'press', the fruit is meant; with 'plant', 'grow', or 'shade', the tree is meant.

Common Mistakes

I ate three olive on the pizza.
I ate three olives on the pizza.
'olive' is countable; use the plural 'olives' for more than one.
She pressed olive into oil.
She pressed olives into oil.
when you mean the fruit as raw material, use the plural.

2. a dull yellow-green colour, similar to the skin of an unripe olive fruit. Often

2.nounB2
Definition

a dull yellow-green colour, similar to the skin of an unripe olive fruit. Often used as a quiet, natural-looking shade in clothing, paint, and military uniforms.

Example

Adina painted the spare bedroom a soft olive that calmed the whole room.

olive as a noun naming a colour

The army jacket had faded from a sharp olive to a dusty grey-green.

from olive to [other colour] — colour change

Common collocations
  • dark olive
  • deep olive
  • soft olive
  • muted olive
Synonyms
  • olive green

    more explicit; specifies the green direction of the shade

  • khaki

    browner and dustier; common for army uniforms and trousers

Grammar Patterns

the colour olive

in olive

Usage Note

Often paired with another colour word for precision: 'olive green' (more green) or 'olive brown' (darker, earthier). 'Olive' alone is enough when the context is clearly about colour, e.g. paint chips, fabric swatches, or fashion.

Common Mistakes

The walls were painted in olives.
The walls were painted olive.
when 'olive' names a colour it stays singular and uncountable; the plural means the fruit.

olive — adjective

Word family

  • olive oil
    nounA2
  • olive tree
    nounB1
  • olive grove
    nounC1
  • olive branch
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

These four expressions all sit around the same Mediterranean plant but pick out different things. 'Olive' on its own usually means the small fruit you eat — green or black, salty, often served whole. 'Olive oil' is the golden liquid pressed from those fruits, used for cooking and dressings. 'Olive tree' is unambiguous about the silver-leaved plant itself; you'd say 'plant an olive tree', not just 'plant an olive'. 'Olive branch' is mostly figurative: a small cutting of the tree that has long stood for peace, so 'offer an olive branch' means making the first move to end a quarrel. Compare: 'I bought a jar of olives' (fruit), 'a bottle of olive oil' (liquid), 'an old olive tree' (plant), 'extend an olive branch' (peace gesture).

olive ↗olive oilolive treeolive branch

Common collocations

Nouns

  • olive oil
  • olive tree
  • olive grove
  • olive branch
  • olive skin

Phrases

  • a jar of olives
  • a sprig of olive
  • olive green

Prepositions

  • in olive (colour)
  • with olives (food)

Etymology

Pre-GreekGreekLatinOld FrenchEnglish

English 'olive' came in during the 13th century from Old French 'olive', which itself developed from Latin 'oliva' meaning the fruit and the tree. The Latin word was borrowed from Greek 'elaia', a much older Mediterranean word that probably came from a pre-Greek language native to the region where olive cultivation began thousands of years ago. The same root gave English 'oil', because pressing olives was the main way ancient peoples produced cooking and lamp oil. The colour sense developed naturally in English from the look of unripe fruit on the tree.