Olive

How to spell olive

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce olive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does olive mean?

1. nounThe small oval fruit of the olive tree, eaten or pressed for oil, or the tree itself.
2. nounA dull yellowish-green or brownish-green colour, like that of an unripe olive.

Olive in a sentence

• She stirred a single olive into the cocktail.

• He painted the spare room a muted olive.

• The farm pressed each ripe olive for its oil.

• The uniform was a drab military olive.

Where does olive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin oliva, which named both the small oily fruit and the tree that bears it. The Latin term was itself borrowed from the ancient Greek elaia, meaning the olive tree, and the same Greek root also gives us the word 'oil', since pressed olives were the chief source of oil in the Mediterranean world. English took the word from Old French olive in the 1200s, and the spelling has stayed remarkably stable ever since. The link to oil is no accident: the substance and the fruit shared one name for centuries before they drifted apart. Because the tree was prized for food, light, and trade, its name spread across many European languages with very little change, which is why 'olive' looks so consistent today.

How the word is built

• oliv- (from Latin oliva: olive fruit or tree)
• -e