This term denotes the wild or uncultivated olive tree, in contrast to the cultivated garden olive. In Romans 11, Paul develops an extended metaphor: Gentile believers are like branches from a wild olive tree grafted contrary to nature into the cultivated olive (Israel's covenant privileges). The word appears twice (11:17, 24) emphasizing the contrast between wild and cultivated. The wild olive produces inferior fruit and normally would be grafted into cultivated stock, not vice versa. Paul's point is precisely this reversal: God has done the unexpected, grafting wild branches (Gentiles) into the cultivated tree (Israel) to share in the root's richness.