oliva

Forms

oliva f (plural olive)^[1] Old variants are Old Italian uliva and Old Italian auliva.^[2] Uliva is still used as a literary and Tuscan variant.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin olīva (“olive; olive tree”), which named both the fruit and the tree.^[5][6][7][1] The Latin word comes from Greek: Ancient Greek ἐλαία (elaía), in an older or Doric form with a /w/, ἐλαίϝα (elaíwā).^[6][7][8] DELI traces it to the same source as olio, Latin oleum.^[5] Devoto counted it among the oldest Greek loans in Latin, brought overland, probably from Taranto, through Doric dialects that kept the /w/ longest; the Greek diphthong /ai/ became /ī/ in the Latin internal syllable.^[9]

Wiktionary gives a route through Etruscan, where Etruscan 𐌄𐌋𐌄𐌉𐌅𐌀𐌍𐌀 (eleivana, “of oil”) points to an Etruscan word for the olive, or a borrowing from a Proto-Hellenic word seen in Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wa.^[1] The Greek word itself is most likely from a Mediterranean source, and Devoto–Oli and Zingarelli call it pre-Indo-European;^[1][10][3] Wiktionary also mentions a possible Proto-Indo-European *h₁loywom.^[1]

The same Latin word gave Occitan oliva, Catalan oliva and Spanish oliva, and French olive was taken from Occitan.^[6][11] The inherited forms include Friulian ulive, Sardinian olia and Dalmatian olea.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record is in the Storie de Troia e de Roma (1252–1258), where the word means an olive branch.^[5][7] The TLIO's earliest text is a set of 13th-century medical recipes from western Tuscany, with the fruit of the olive tree.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The fruit sense is firmly recorded in Cavalca (before 1342), who also used the word for the tree.^[5] Old Italian already had olio di oliva “olive oil” and a mulino da olive, an olive press, and the word could also name the berry of the laurel.^[2] Medieval Latin had a dominica olivarum (Salimbene, 1281–1288) beside Palm Sunday, recalling the branches waved for Christ's entry into Jerusalem.^[5]

From the 16th century the word named a colour: Dolce used it in 1565 for a dull green.^[5] Later uses come from the shape: architects' oblong beads, the anatomical olives of the brain stem, a bookbinder's spindle for a bookmark, and the sea snails of the genus Oliva.^[7][12][13] Journalists have used it for a hidden microphone.^[3]

German has Olive from 1483.^[14] There it named part of a horse's bit from 1570, a sense recorded in Italian in 1692.^[14]

Timeline

• 1252–1258 – The Storie de Troia e de Roma use oliva for an olive branch.^[5][7]
• 13th century – Tuscan medical recipes name the fruit.^[2]
• 1281–1288 – Salimbene writes of the Latin dominica olivarum.^[5]
• Before 1342 – Cavalca uses oliva for the fruit and the tree.^[5]
• 1483 – German Olive is first recorded.^[14]
• 1565 – Dolce uses oliva for a dull green colour.^[5]
• 1692 – The sense “part of a bridle” is recorded.^[14]
• 19th century – The anatomical and zoological senses appear.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The olive: the oval fruit of the olivo, a drupe rich in oil, green when unripe and dark purple or black when ripe.^[7][10][3]
2. (literary) The olive tree, or an olive branch.^[10][3][15]
3. A dull green colour like that of an unripe olive.^[7]
4. An object shaped like an olive;^[7][16] a oliva: ovoid, olive-shaped.^[7][16]
5. (architecture) Each of the oblong beads carved in a row on an astragal.^[7][16]
6. (anatomy) Each of the oval structures of the nervous system, especially the oliva bulbare of the medulla oblongata.^[7][16][17]
7. (bookbinding) A small movable spindle to which a ribbon bookmark is attached, especially in missals.^[7][12]
8. (zoology) A sea snail of the genus Oliva, with a smooth elongated shell.^[7]
9. (journalism) A hidden bug for eavesdropping.^[3]

Adjective

1. Of a dull olive green, invariable and placed after the noun: un maglione verde oliva.^[7][3][15]

Word family

• olivo
• olivastro
• oliveto
• olivetano
• olivetta
• olivicoltore
• olivicoltura
• olivina
• olivaio
• olivella

Related words

• olio
• oleastro
• Latin olea

Usage notes

Olive da tavola are table olives and olive da olio olives for pressing.^[15] Olio d'oliva is olive oil, and olive all'ascolana are stuffed fried olives.^[7][3] The name domenica degli olivi for Palm Sunday is recorded from 1879, and domenica d'ulivo already in the 14th century.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 303
10. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ a b Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2640
14. ^ a b c d Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
15. ^ a b c Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
16. ^ a b c d Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
17. ^ Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse