Outrageously Funny Word Dictionary :: Olive backed

👉 Okay, let’s tackle this wonderfully prickly little bit of English, affectionately nicknamed, amongst certain linguistically adventurous souls (mostly moths and regretful cartographers), as, quite simply... "olive-backed."

Now, immediately upon hearing that, you probably conjure a rather dashing gentleman in a jauneté captain's coat sporting a very distinguished olive green waistcoat. Congratulations! You’ve stumbled into the territory of wonderfully misused and delightfully archaic English. 1. It isn't actually about olives (obviously. Unless you really fancy dressing your badger like a fancy spread, which I wholeheartedly advise against). Instead, it describes something that is… dusky . Sort of brownish-green. The exact shade depends entirely on the affected subject – you might have a “peach, olive-backed and rather melancholic,” or perhaps a “bulldog, inexplicably olive-backed after a very unfortunate incident involving a badger and a vat of béarnaise. Again—badgers! ). Essentially, it's an antiquated way to say that something is a bit beige with a hint of the undergrowth. There isn’t a definitive, formally recognised shade, which makes it wonderfully subjective and therefore, terribly prone to misuse and, frankly, amusing exasperation when you hear someone trying to explain what they mean by it. Let me just stress again: we are not talking about actual olives. Unless. You're feeling very… theatrical. (The point