Ask a phytologist, and therefore the reply would be yes: Associate in Nursing olive, similar to a plum or a cherry, is a fruit. The olive is that the tiny, bitter-tasting fruit of the fruit tree, genus Olea europea. Olives area unit classified as fruit as a result of they’re shaped from the ovary of the olive flower, and they’re seed-bearing structures - those tiny stones (or pits) that you simply leave on the aspect of your plate might grow into trees if you planted them. In preparation terms, however, olives area unit like those alternative fruit, tomatoes, and area unit treated as a vegetable: we have a tendency to eat them in savoury dishes or on their own as a snack or hors d’oeuvre.
Olives may be picked once they’re unripe and inexperienced, or left to ripen on the tree, their color dynamical to purplish-black. Either way, they're too bitter to eat straight from the tree: they have to be treated 1st (usually by being soaked in brine). Of course, olives area unit typically ironed to provide a flexible oil that’s utilized in dish dressings or for cooking; vegetable oil was conjointly erstwhile burnt in lamps to produce lighting.