The Color Orange Was Named After the Fruit

For centuries, if an English speaker wanted to describe the color of a sunset, a carrot, or a monarch butterfly, they would have to get creative. There was no single, common word for the hue we now know as orange. Instead, they would have likely referred to it as 'geoluhread,' an Old English term that translates simply to 'yellow-red.' The color existed in nature, of course, but it lived in the linguistic space between two other primary colors, described by its components rather than having an identity of its own.

This all changed with the arrival of a new, exotic fruit. Sweet oranges, cultivated in Asia, were introduced to Europe by traders around the 15th and 16th centuries. The fruit's name traveled a long path, originating from the Sanskrit 'naranga,' passing through Persian and Arabic before entering European languages. The fruit was so distinct and its color so vibrant that its name became inextricably linked to its appearance. Slowly, the word 'orange' began to describe not just the fruit, but the color itself, finally giving a proper name to the 'yellow-red' part of the spectrum.