Meaning & use
picholine olive tree
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Meanings
nouncountablespecialist
An olive tree of a French variety grown mainly in southern France, valued for the green olives it produces.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a picholine olive tree or several picholine olive trees.
Patterns
- plant a picholine olive tree
- grow picholine olive trees
The grower planted a picholine olive tree beside the old stone wall.
Picholine olive trees do well in dry, sunny regions with mild winters.
Our neighbor's picholine olive tree produces small green olives every autumn.
nouncountablespecialist
The fruit of this tree, a small green olive often cured and eaten as a snack or used in cooking.
Grammar: Countable when talking about individual fruits: a picholine olive, two picholine olives.
Patterns
- a bowl of picholine olives
- cured picholine olives
She served a bowl of picholine olives before dinner.
These picholine olives are firm and slightly nutty in flavor.
Chefs often use picholine olives in tapenade because they hold their shape.
Word forms
| plural | picholine olive trees |
|---|
Common combinations
- plant a picholine olive tree
- They decided to plant a picholine olive tree in the front garden.
- grow picholine olive trees
- Farmers in the region grow picholine olive trees on terraced hillsides.
- a picholine olive tree produces
- A mature picholine olive tree produces fruit in late summer.
- picholine olives are cured
- Picholine olives are cured in brine before they are sold.
- harvest picholine olives
- Workers harvest picholine olives by hand in October.
Synonyms and how they differ
- olive tree
- The general term for any tree of this kind; use it when the exact variety does not matter.
- olive
- Refers to the fruit or the tree in everyday speech, without naming the variety.
Word family
- olive noun
- The fruit or the tree itself.
- olive grove noun
- A field or area where olive trees are grown.
- olive oil noun
- The oil pressed from olives, used in cooking.
Commonly confused: picholine olive tree or Picholine?
picholine olive tree vs Picholine
This is the variety name on its own; add "olive tree" when you mean the plant and "olive" when you mean the fruit.
Practice
Which sentence uses the term correctly?
Choose one answer.
"A picholine olive tree" is singular and needs the article "a"; option 1 wrongly mixes "a" with the plural "trees", option 2 omits the article, and option 3 puts the plural "olives" in the wrong place.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “picholine olive tree”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.