Olive (color)

Look up olive in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Olive
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#808000
HSV       (h, s, v)	(60°, 100%, 50[1]%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(128, 128, 0)
Source	X11 color names
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Light olive
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Green olives

Olive is a dark yellowish-green color,^[2] like that of unripe or green olives.

As a color word in the English language, it appears in late Middle English. Shaded toward gray, it becomes olive drab.

Variations[]

Olivine[]

Green sand is actually crystalline olivine which has been eroded from lava rocks

Olivine
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#9AB973
HSV       (h, s, v)	(87°, 38%, 73%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(154, 185, 115)
Source	[1]/Maerz & Paul[3]
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Moderate yellow green
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Olivine is the typical color of the mineral olivine.

Olivine crystals

The first recorded use of olivine as a color name in English was in 1912.^[4]

Olive drab[]

Olive Drab
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#6B8E23
HSV       (h, s, v)	(80°, 75%, 56%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(107, 142, 35)
Source	X11 color names
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Strong yellow green
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Olive drab camouflage
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#544F3D
HSV       (h, s, v)	(47°, 27.4%, 32.9%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(84, 79, 61)
Source	Federal Standard 595 33070
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Grayish olive
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Olive Drab #7
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#3C341F
HSV       (h, s, v)	(43.4°, 48.3%, 23.5%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(60, 52, 31)
Source	HexColorPedia
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Dark olive
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Olive drab is variously described as a "dull olive-green colour" (Oxford English Dictionary);^[5] "a shade of greenish-brown" (Webster's New World Dictionary);^[6] "a dark gray-green" (MacMillan English dictionary); "a grayish olive to dark olive brown or olive gray" (American Heritage Dictionary);^[7] or "A dull but fairly strong gray-green color" (Collins English Dictionary). It was widely used as a camouflage color for uniforms and equipment in the armed forces, particularly by the U.S. Army during the Second World War.

The first recorded use of olive drab as a color name in English was in 1892.^[8] Drab is an older color name, from the middle of the 16th century. It refers to a dull light brown color, the color of cloth made from undyed homespun wool. It took its name from the old French word for cloth, drap.^[5]

Olive drab was the color of the standard fighting uniform for U.S. soldiers and military vehicles during World War II. The shade used by the U.S. Army at the beginning of the war was officially called Olive Drab #3 (OD3), which was replaced in 1943 by the darker Olive Drab #7 (OD7, hex code #3C341F^[9]). This was in turn replaced by the Olive Green 107 or OG-107 uniform in 1952,^[10] which continued as the official combat uniform through the Vietnam War until it was replaced as the primary U.S. battle uniform in 1981 by the camouflage-patterned M81 Battle Dress Uniform, based on the ERDL pattern used by some soldiers in Vietnam which retained olive drab as one of the color swatches in the pattern.

As a solid color, it is not as effective for camouflage as multi-color patterns, though it is still used by the U.S. military to color webbing and accessories. The armies of Israel, India, Cuba, Venezuela, and Austria wear solid-color olive drab uniforms.

In the American novel A Separate Peace, Finny says to Gene, "...and in these times of war, we all see olive drab, and we all know it is the patriotic color. All others aren't about the war; they aren't patriotic."

There are many shades and variations of olive drab; one common version is defined by Federal Standard 595 in the United States.^[11]

• 

  An olive drab M-1943 field jacket, worn by US soldiers during World War II.

• 

  Olive drab is the uniform color of the Israel Army.

• 

  Cuban soldiers in olive drab.

Olive green[]

Olive green is greener than olive or olive drab but less green than dark olive green. An example is U.S. Army OG-107:

An M1 helmet, the standard helmet of the U.S. Army from 1941 through the Vietnam War. This helmet is from the Vietnam War; the color is olive green 107.

Pantone 448 C, "the ugliest color in the world" commonly used in plain tobacco packaging, was initially described as a shade of olive green.^[12]

Dark olive green[]

Dark Olive Green
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#556B2F
HSV       (h, s, v)	(82°, 56%, 42[13]%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(85, 107, 47)
Source	X11
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Moderate olive green
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Displayed at right is the web color dark olive green.

Black olive[]

An example of black olives

Black olive
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#3B3C36
HSV       (h, s, v)	(70°, 10%, 24[14]%)
sRGBB  (r, g, b)	(59, 60, 54)
Source	RAL
ISCC–NBS descriptor	Dark grayish olive green
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Black olive is a color in the RAL color matching system. It is designated as RAL 6015.

The color "black olive" is a representation of the color of black olives.

This is one of the colors in the RAL color matching system, a color system widely used in Europe. The RAL color list originated in 1927, and it reached its present form in 1961.

Olive in culture[]

Ethnography

• The term "olive-skinned" is sometimes used to denote shades of medium-toned skin that is darker than the average color for White people, especially in connection with a Mediterranean ethnicity.

See also[]

• List of colors

References[]