OLIVE BRANCH • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Olive branch

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/ˈɑləv bræntʃ/ Listen

noun

Olive n.

1.

(Bot.)

(a)

A tree (Olea Europaea) with small oblong or elliptical leaves, axillary clusters of flowers, and oval, one-seeded drupes. The tree has been cultivated for its fruit for thousands of years, and its branches are the emblems of peace. The wood is yellowish brown and beautifully variegated.

(b)

The fruit of the olive. It has been much improved by cultivation, and is used for making pickles. Olive oil is pressed from its flesh.

2.

(Zool.)

(a)

Any shell of the genus Oliva and allied genera; so called from the form. See Oliva.

(b)

The oyster catcher. (Prov. Eng.)

3.

(a)

The color of the olive, a peculiar dark brownish, yellowish, or tawny green.

(b)

One of the tertiary colors, composed of violet and green mixed in equal strength and proportion.

4.

(Anat.) An olivary body. See under Olivary.

5.

(Cookery) A small slice of meat seasoned, rolled up, and cooked; as, olives of beef or veal. Note: Olive is sometimes used adjectively and in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, olive brown, olive green, olive-colored, olive-skinned, olive crown, olive garden, olive tree, olive yard, etc.

Bohemian olive (Bot.), a species of Elaeagnus (Elaeagnus angustifolia), the flowers of which are sometimes used in Southern Europe as a remedy for fevers.

Olive branch.

(a)

A branch of the olive tree, considered an emblem of peace.

(b)

(Fig.) A child.

to hold out an olive branch, to offer to make peace (with a rival or enemy).

Olive brown, brown with a tinge of green.

Olive green, a dark brownish green, like the color of the olive.

Olive oil, an oil expressed from the ripe fruit of the olive, and much used as a salad oil, also in medicine and the arts.

Olive ore (Min.), olivenite.

Wild olive (Bot.), a name given to the oleaster or wild stock of the olive; also variously to several trees more or less resembling the olive.

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Etymology of 'Olive branch'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Olive branch" Quotes from Famous Books

... Honorius. The Gospel was chanted from the one on the south side with the reading desk turned towards the choir; and the Epistle from the one on the north, with a single desk towards the high altar. Before the Gospel ambo is a fine mosaic candelabrum standing on a Roman cippus reversed, having an olive branch and birds ...

— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various

... (based on the hoist side) dividing the flag into two right triangles; the upper triangle is green, the lower one is blue; a gold wreath encircling a gold olive branch is centered on the hoist side ...

— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... days when he had spoken to them of the future and had perhaps forgotten to tell them how far away that future must be. There was something more practical about his present attitude. What would they say here in Manchester, expecting fire and thunder from his lips and finding him hold out the olive branch? He shrugged his shoulders;—a useless speculation, after all. He rang the bell and glanced through the cards which the ...

— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of olive! There is something refreshing, something of the fields and hills, of leisure and childishness, in the proceeding, if only the poor creatures realised it. But to most of them, I take it, the bearing of a silver cross, of an olive branch, is in reality as utilitarian (though utilitarian in regard to another world) as holding the tail of a saucepan or rattling a money-box. For how many, one wonders, is that door, opening to the cross and the olive branches, the door of an inner ...

— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... address, when as yet not a drop of precious blood had been shed, while he held out to them the olive branch in one hand, in the other he presented the guarantees of the Constitution, and after reciting the emphatic resolution of the convention that nominated him, that the maintenance inviolate of the "rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and ...

— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

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