Olive-green Swamp Grasshopper

Olive is a dark yellowish-green color, 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

Olivine is the typical color of the mineral olivine.

The first recorded use of ''olivine'' as a color name in English was in 1912.

Olive drab

Olive drab is variously described as a "dull olive-green colour" (''Oxford English Dictionary'');''Oxford English Dictionary'', 5th Edition, 1982 "a shade of greenish-brown" (''Webster's New World Dictionary''); "a dark gray-green" (''MacMillan English dictionary''); "a grayish olive to dark olive brown or olive gray" (''American Heritage Dictionary''); 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. 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''.

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). This was in turn replaced by the ''Olive Green 107'' or '' OG-107'' uniform in 1952, 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 four-color-camouflage-patterned M81 Battle Dress Uniform, 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, and Venezuela 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.

File:M1943 Field Jacket.jpg, An olive drab M-1943 field jacket, worn by US soldiers during World War II.
File:Flickr - Israel Defense Forces - Officer Course for Infantry Command.jpg, Olive drab is the uniform color of the Israel Army.
File:Cuban Soldiers of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias.jpg, 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:

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

Dark olive green

This is the web color dark olive green.

Black olive

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
* Khaki, another color common in military uniforms

References

{{Shades of black, Black olive

Quaternary colors
Shades of green
Shades of yellow
Shades of black
Web colors