oliva

Forms

oliva f (plural olivas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin olīva (“olive; olive tree”).^[2][1][3] The Latin word named both the tree and its fruit; the usual Spanish name of the tree, olivo, recorded from 1147, comes from a Vulgar Latin masculine olīvus formed from it.^[4]

The same Latin word is Catalan oliva, Portuguese oliva, French olive and Italian oliva.^[5][3][1] The REW takes the French word from Occitan or Catalan and the Portuguese one from Spanish,^[5] while Nascentes sees in Portuguese an inherited word later remade on the Latin, since the Arabic word for the olive had not yet displaced it in the 13th century.^[6]

The Latin word is an adaptation of Ancient Greek ἐλαία (elaía), taken from a dialect that still kept the /w/ written with digamma, as in ⟨elaiwa⟩.^[7][8] Latin also had olea from the same Greek word, and oleum (“olive oil”) from ἔλαιον (élaion).^[7][9][4] The Greek word itself is thought to be a loan from a Mediterranean language;^[8] Wiktionary considers a Pre-Greek source most likely and mentions an Etruscan intermediary and a Proto-Indo-European *h₁loywom as alternatives.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in Almerich's La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where Noah's dove comes back with un ramo de olyva con sus fojas verdes en su boca “a branch of olive with its green leaves in its mouth”.^[10] The BDELC dates the word 1220–1250, the period of Berceo, who names the cross de palma e d'oliva “of palm and of olive”.^[4][10] The first record in a text known from its own manuscript is the Fueros de Aragón of 1247: Oliuas auras en todos los terminos tuyos “you will have olive trees in all your lands”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used oliva for both the tree and its fruit: Alfonso X's Estoria de España names olive trees growing on the Guadalquivir and the Ebro, and his Lapidario speaks of olyo de oliuas, oil of olives.^[11] The Arabic-derived aceituna took over the fruit in most of Spain, and the BDELC calls oliva the old name of the olive, now provincial.^[4][12]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1737) gave the tree first, then the fruit, “so called commonly in Andalusia”, and a third sense, the barn owl, which it took from Palmireno's vocabulary as a word of Valencia and other places.^[13] The Academy's 1843 edition marked the fruit and the owl as provincial,^[14] and its 1884 edition first gave the etymology, from Latin oliva.^[15] Alemany (1917) added an anatomical sense, a nucleus in the cerebellum, and a genus of sea snails,^[16] and medicine still calls several oval structures of the brain stem and the tip of some probes oliva.^[17] The DLE also gives “peace”, after the olive branch, and the colour of the olive.^[2]

The first record from the Americas is from Mexico City in 1571, where cuttings of olive trees were to be planted.^[18] In Judeo-Spanish fazerse oliva, literally “to turn olive”, means to go green from suffering or a bitter disappointment.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has un ramo de olyva, in a 13th-century copy.^[10]
• 1236–1246 – Berceo uses the word in El duelo de la Virgen.^[10]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón speak of oliuas in the fields.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the fruit.^[11]
• 1571 – the first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[18]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it as an olive and an olive tree.^[20]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the tree, the fruit in Andalusia and the owl in Valencia.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the Latin etymon.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) The olive tree (olivo).^[2][1]
2. An olive, the fruit of the olive tree; aceituna: Este año la oliva viene cargada.^[2][21]
3. A barn owl (lechuza).^[2][21]
4. (figurative) Peace (paz).^[2][21]
5. (anatomy) An oval nucleus or swelling of the brain stem or cerebellum; the olive-shaped tip of a probe or dilator.^[17]
6. Olive green, the colour of the unripe olive.^[2]

Adjective

1. Olive-coloured, of a green like that of the olive: una chaqueta verde oliva.^[2]

Related words

• oleicultura
• olivar
• olivo
• óleo
• Latin olīva
• Catalan oliva

Usage notes

In most of Spain and in Latin America the fruit is aceituna, and oliva for the fruit is regional, used especially in eastern Spain;^[4][1] it remains general in aceite de oliva “olive oil”.^[2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. oliva
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. olivo
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. oliva
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
11. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024)
12. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. oliva
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 33
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 511
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 759
16. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1220
17. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. oliva
18. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. oliva
19. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. oliva
20. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 180
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oliva