Not to hijack, but when I look at that wheel, I identify patches of red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta. This image (scroll down to the color wheels) clarifies glas, anyway. I’m sure others will be along to make this point clearer than I can. Many languages divide blue: Russian синий (sinij) and голубой (goluboj), Italian blu and azzurro. Welsh, at least in medieval times, splits our “gray” into their “blue” and their “brown,” for instance their “blue” also includes most of our “green,” a color sometimes called “grue” by culture-studies folk. There’s no natural boundary between one color and the next, it’s always a continuum.
The colors exist independently of language, but the way the spectrum is divided varies enormously from language to language. It is hardly like it is cerise or ecru or taupe or something (or even crimson or turquoise).Īlso, is it true, as I have heard, the fruit was originally called “a noringe” in English (presumably derived from the Spanish), and that this only later became corrupted to “an orange”? (I have an idea that “noringe” occurs somewhere in Shakespeare.) It is one of the basic spectral colors (the 7 colors of the rainbow) after all. Can that be right? Why did these other languages with (I presume) otherwise quite different color vocabularies, have to borrow this word from English? Why did they not evolve their own term, like they did for other colors?Ĭome to that, why does “orange” as a color appear so late in English (1557 according to Samclem’s post)? I guess the fruit might not have been introduced into Europe until relatively late, but surely they must have had other things (flowers, paints dyes) that were that color. It then appears that several other languages, with quite different names for the fruit, have borrowed the color name from English. So, if I am following the thread correctly, in English the color name was derived from the name of the fruit. Flann is usually used with blood, and flannbhuí is sort of an academic / archaic word: spoken Irish uses oráiste for the color, too.
*Irish has a variety of words that map onto our red. orañjez) or aouraval “gold-apple.” The color is *melenruz *“yellow “orange color.”īreton has a nice variety: for the fruit, aval orañjez “orange apple” or just orañjezenn (pl. Welsh has oren for the fruit and melyngoch, from melyn “yellow” + coch “red,” for the color. In both cases the orange-sounding word gets used for both. Scottish Gaelic is the opposite: òraisd is the color, and or-ubhall (lit. Irish has oráiste for the fruit, and flannbhuí for the color, the latter a combination of flann, one of the red words* and buí, “yellow.” Russian is апельсин (apel’sín) for the fruit, same word & etymology as above the color is оранжевый цвет (oránzhevyj tsvjet), where цвет is the word “color” and -ый is an adjectival termination: orangy color. 18 His tawny Beard…The upper part thereof was Whey, The nether Orange mixt with Gray. 254 Fyve clewis of sindrie culloures of worsett as blak, reid, orange, yallow and blew. 100 Coloured cloth of any other colour or colours…hereafter mentioned, that is to say, scarlet, red, crimson, morrey, violet, pewke, brown, blue, black, green, yellow, blue, orange. Also: a pigment or dye of this colour.Ĭadmium, chrome, Mars, methyl orange, etc.: see the first element.ġ557 in Great Brit.
#DIFFERENT WORDS FOR ORANGE THE COLOR SKIN#
A bright reddish-yellow colour like that of the skin of a ripe orange any one of a number of shades occupying the region between red and yellow in the spectrum. All of these predate what Cecil knew at the time.Īs to the color, it always comes later. Cij, Take the iuice of an Oringe, or else Vergice. 161 The rynde of the Orrendge is hot, and the meate within it is cold. TURNER Libellus de re Herbaria at Macer, Malum medicum an oreche. MIRFIELD Sinonoma Bartholomei 15 Citrangulum pomum, orenge. The current OED earliest cite(in English) for the tree/fruit is ca1400.Ī1400 J. The Master speaks (at least in answer to your second question): What came first, orange or oranges?Ĭecil did that column quite some time ago.