Did you know that orange, meaning the color, wasn’t used until the 1500, while orange, for the fruit, dates to the 1300s? And that’s just in English!
The fruit is truly ancient, and our word traces its roots ultimately back to the Sanskrit naranga, by way Persian, Arabic, Italian, Medieval Latin, and French. Quite a journey! The word didn’t change much in its pronunciation as it traveled the globe, except that the initial n got confused with its articles at some point and it became an orange instead of a norange (much like several other words!).
The fascinating bit is that the color had no definite name in English for so long! It was just called “reddish-yellow” or occasionally “saffron” or “citrine.” Eventually people started referring to the shade as “the color of a ripe orange.”
It’s believed that the tree originated in India, imported to Europe, and from there, Columbus brought it with him to the new world, planting its seeds in the Caribbean on his second trip. Ponce de Leon is responsible for bringing them to Florida in 1513, and Hawaii saw its first oranges in 1792.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.