# Pale Red? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 10, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477 "2004-03-10T13:38:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cowardly\_Lion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/46a35a/32.png) [@Cowardly\_Lion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cowardly_Lion)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/41 "2004-03-13T06:15:51Z")
At this site: [http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/colour.htm](http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/colour.htm) It seems to imply that the French town of Orange influenced the naming of the fruit and colour, although other sites seem to imply the reverse. Purely speculatively, how about rust or ochre as medieval alternatives to orange as a colour. I would imagine that they would have used a word related to the most common orange coloured object in their experience. Maybe even “early sunset” colour. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/42 "2004-03-13T14:40:02Z")
‘ochre’ apparently came into the language around the same time as ‘tawny’ and orange-the-fruit; it started off as a color (in Greek), became applied to the minerals (iron oxides) of the color that were used as pigments, and then became applied to a color again. ‘rust’ is related to red; the use of it as a color seems to be fairly recent. And it is not primarily a color word. Blue, green, yelllow, red, purple (and tawny) are all primarily words for colors. They seem to have very old roots, and always referred to colors. (Except ‘tawny’, which seems to come from ‘tan’ [treating animal skins]). So English has some very old words for five of the six colors on our kindergarden color wheel, but **nothing** for orange until about the 1300s. And I could not find a word in any European language (except possibly the Rumanian) for the color that is not related to the fruit. The words associated with the color (‘tawny’, ‘ochre’) came to England about the same time as the fruit, but the name of the fruit was not applied to the color for a century or two. This all seems to be a result of the Norman Conquest (my thank to the French for their past and continuing contributions to the English language, although I never found ochre or tawny particularly attractive colors or words.) There was a Latin word, ‘flavus’, that apparently could be used for orange [‘reddish-yellow’] that never made it down the word-chain to English. ---
**Author:** ![Faldage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Faldage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Faldage)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/43 "2004-03-18T13:01:51Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > I would say “tawny”, based on the use of this word for orange-coloured items in heraldry, which predates the introduction of “orange”. COED defines _tawny_ as: > [@COED](#): > > Name of a composite colour, consisting of brown with a preponderance of yellow or orange; but formerly applied to other shades of brown. The earliest citation is from 1377. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/44 "2004-03-18T14:03:31Z")
The same kind of thing happened with pink; before the colour was named (after the flower, which is a type of carnation and is in turn called ‘pink’ because the edges of the petals are frilled or ‘pinked’), people said ‘pale red’ or ‘white blushed with scarlet’; could the same not also have been true of the colour orange, that people called it ‘deep golden yellow’ or ‘reddish yellow’ something like that? ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/45 "2004-03-18T14:40:48Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > (Orenge appel) meant the fruit “orange” in that sentence. But the writer said it was **yellow as an orange**. So perhaps not all oranges were perceive as “orange” color at that time. I just saw this post; your reference strongly suggests to me that the color was commonly referred to as either ‘yellow’, or (one would assume) ‘red’, depending on the shade, before the wide-spread use of the name of the fruit for the color. ‘Yellow as an Orange-apple’ sounds like a person describing a shade of yellow to me. Thanks. Oh, and thank you for the source of the use of ‘tawny’ for the color. ---
**Author:** ![Lampare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/0ea827/32.png) [@Lampare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lampare)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/46 "2004-03-18T14:54:16Z")
I was doing some research to verify Kennedy’s claim that there were no orange carrots in 1620 (…"(the orange breed of carrot being historically recent)") and ran across this statement on a webpage ([http://website.lineone.net/~stolarczyk/index.html](http://website.lineone.net/~stolarczyk/index.html)) devoted to carrots: “Both of the words in “Daucus carota” mean orange” Latin is all Greek to me, but could any of you freelance etymologists out there verify (or debunk) this statement? By the way, this wesite also states that 10th century Afghans enjoyed orange carrots, but also says the orange carrot wasn’t developed until the 16th century…or the 17th century. The creator of the website is loathe to let consistency get in the way of his enthusiasm for root vegetables. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/47 "2004-03-18T15:09:13Z")
Not only were carrots originally white or purple, but there are also very few naturally orange objects here in Britain; there is only one native orange flower (and it is called the Scarlet Pimpernel) - there are a number of plants that produce orange berries, but most of these are poisonous or inedible. It seems that there might not have been all that much use for a word meaning ‘orange’. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/48 "2004-03-18T15:59:47Z")
I wonder, too, how much the ability to create a dye pigment orange in color (or any other color) affects the terminology? Are there natural dyes that produce the color we call “orange” in cloth? ---
**Author:** ![The\_PHB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df788c/32.png) [@The\_PHB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_PHB)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/49 "2004-03-18T17:10:46Z")
One of the advantages of only picking up on a thread after 48 posts is that you get to read them all at once, and you (at least have a chance to) spot repetitions and inconsistencies. For example, in the article referenced in post #15, we had this: > [@](#): > > Originally “posted” by **The Perfect Master** : > > _Brent Berlin and Paul Kay … suggest that there is a remarkable degree of uniformity in the way different cultures assign color names. In a study of 98 languages from a variety of linguistic families, they found the following “rules” seem to apply:_[ol][li]_All languages contain terms for white and black._[/li][li]_If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red._[/li][li]_If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both)._[/li][li]_If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow._[/li][li]_If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue._[/li][li]_If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown._[/li][li]_If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple, pink, orange, grey, or some combination of these._[/li][/ol]_Berlin and Kay also found that the number of basic color terms tends to increase with the complexity of the civilization._ Then in post #42 or thereabouts, we have: > [@](#): > > Originally posted by **j66** : > > \*Blue, green, yelllow, red, purple (and tawny) are all primarily words for colors. They seem to have very old roots, and always referred to colors. (Except ‘tawny’, which seems to come from ‘tan’ [treating animal skins]). > > So English has some very old words for five of the six colors on our kindergarden color wheel, but nothing for orange until about the 1300s. And I could not find a word in any European language (except possibly the Rumanian) for the color that is not related to the fruit.\* Sounds to me like a consensus is emerging (on this narow point at least). ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/50 "2004-03-18T18:31:54Z")
The Arabic _Burtuqual_ and the Romanian _portocaliu_ both derive from Portugal, a major source of sweet oranges. “Orange” actually comes from a word for the bitter orange. The original name of Orange, France was Arausio, which probably shifted to Orange after the fruit. I have read one claim that Orange had an important place in the early citrus trade, but there were no cites. This is where the house of Orange got its name, and its house color, and the three oranges on the coat of arms. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/51 "2004-03-18T19:16:47Z")
Hmmm…I was thinking that “amber” can be rather close to orange at times. Did they always call amber, “amber?” Maybe they also used it to describe orange. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/52 "2004-03-18T20:22:27Z")
The online dictionaries that I checked say ‘amber’ entered the language at Middle English, (very roughly) the same time as ‘tawny’ and ‘ochre’. samclem seems to know what he is talking about. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/53 "2004-03-22T00:33:15Z")
> [@j66](#): > > Blue, green, yelllow, red, purple (and tawny) are all primarily words for colors. They seem to have very old roots, and always referred to colors. > There was a Latin word, ‘flavus’, that apparently could be used for orange [‘reddish-yellow’] that never made it down the word-chain to English. I don’t agree with the statement about these colour words always referring to colours. “Blue” barely existed as a vocabulary item for the Romans - they could use the word “ceruleus” meaning “like the sky”, but it wasn’t a “primary” colour for them. Our word “blue” comes from “blavus” meaning a bruise. French still uses the word “bleu” to mean a bruise as well as the colour. “Purple” is from the name of the shellfish that yielded the prestigious purple dye (porphyra in Greek). As for flavus, we have the English words “flavous” and “flavonoids” (from “flavone”, a yellow pigment used as a dye). In the list of words for “orange” in various European languages, the word “luteus” was listed. I was going to say this means “muddy” but my dictionary tells me another meaning of “lutum” which is a plant used for dyeing yellow. Colours associated with this are “yellowish, gold-coloured, saffron, orange-coloured”. So luteus may be about right, if a little obscure. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/54 "2004-03-22T04:28:43Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > I don’t agree with the statement about these colour words always referring to colours. What I meant was that the words have old roots. The words in English refer primarily to colors. Not that the old roots of all the words referred to colors. > [@hibernicus](#): > > “Purple” is from the name of the shellfish that yielded the prestigious purple dye (porphyra in Greek). Yes, I know. Isn’t a muscle? > [@hibernicus](#): > > As for flavus, we have the English words “flavous” and “flavonoids” (from “flavone”, a yellow pigment used as a dye). That is germane; of all the Latin color words I found, that was the closest to orange; flame-like and reddish yellow I believe the dictionary said. However, it came into the language as a term for yellow. > [@hibernicus](#): > > In the list of words for “orange” in various European languages, the word “luteus” was listed. I was going to say this means “muddy” but my dictionary tells me another meaning of “lutum” which is a plant used for dyeing yellow. Colours associated with this are “yellowish, gold-coloured, saffron, orange-coloured”. So luteus may be about right, if a little obscure. I don’t think that anyone has found an English word with the ‘lute’ stem in common use for a color yet. Do you know of one? Do you know gaelic? Could the ‘lus’ in ‘lus ny shynee’ referred to the color of the 'orange-flowered hawkweed? ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/55 "2004-03-22T05:23:05Z")
So can we settle this as red, yellow, or some combination thereof, or some other synonym (amber, tawdry, straw, whatever)? On a slight hijack, I find the following very intersting: Phonecia = land of purple Phoenix = legendary bird of fire Zhu Que = Chinese name for legendary bird of fire (Suzaku in Japanese), literally meaning “Scarlet Bird” (well, whatever color that is deep red/purple in English) Obviously there has been some cross-pollinization, or maybe I’m seeing patterns in random coincidences. How exactly does one measure the significance of linguistic matches, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![bullant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bullant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bullant)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/56 "2004-03-22T06:41:20Z")
Some languages actually don’t have words for colours like blue. They call them “slate coloured”, or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/57 "2004-03-23T02:38:37Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > I don’t agree with the statement about these colour words always referring to colours. “Blue” barely existed as a vocabulary item for the Romans - they could use the word “ceruleus” meaning “like the sky”, but it wasn’t a “primary” colour for them. **Our word “blue” comes from “blavus” meaning a bruise**. French still uses the word “bleu” to mean a bruise as well as the colour. (bolding mine–sc) Where do you get your info that the English word “blue” comes from 'blavus"? My _Chambers Dictionary of Etymology_ says that the Latin word _flavus_ probably meant “yellow” to the Romans. Is the Proto-Germanic word _blaewaz_ the same as _blavus_? I don’t know enough to know that it was referring to a bruise at that time. Certainly the French word developed that way. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/58 "2004-03-24T00:46:59Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > (bolding mine–sc) > > Where do you get your info that the English word “blue” comes from 'blavus"? My _Chambers Dictionary of Etymology_ says that the Latin word _flavus_ probably meant “yellow” to the Romans. Is the Proto-Germanic word _blaewaz_ the same as _blavus_? I don’t know enough to know that it was referring to a bruise at that time. Certainly the French word developed that way. This is a tough one. I note that Merriam-Webster thinks the French word is of Germanic origin, as does the American Heritage Dictionary - on the other hand, the Catalan word (for bruise and blue) is “blu” (I think), so that suggests a Latin -\> French route, as does the fact that the French word keeps the Latin meaning. As for the Germanic root, \*blaewaz is certainly cognate both with “flavus” (also related to Greek _phlego_) and probably also with “blavus” (which my trusty White’s dictionary does not attest, but I’m certain I’m not making it up), and the semantic difference is not insurmountable - after all, these words also share a root with black, blank, flaming and others, so the semantic content of colour-words seems very mutable. **j66** , I know Irish (there isn’t really a language called Gaelic), and the example you gave appears to be Scottish or Manx. However, the last two words appear to mean “of the fox”, and the first part “lus” is just a common element in plant names - something like “-weed” or “-wort”. So “lus ny shynee” literally means “foxweed”. The Irish for the colour orange is just the same as for the fruit - “oráiste”. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/59 "2004-03-24T00:54:59Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > This is a tough one. I note that Merriam-Webster thinks the French word is of Germanic origin, as does the American Heritage Dictionary - on the other hand, the Catalan word (for bruise and blue) is “blu” (I think), so that suggests a Latin -\> French route, as does the fact that the French word keeps the Latin meaning. Okay, I messed up. It seems “blavus” does not exist in Classical Latin; it is a mediaeval loan from Frankish \*blao. So it is Germanic after all. And obviously cognate with “flavus”. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477/60 "2004-03-24T02:28:43Z")
(I’m not really here, so nobody yell at me, okay?) I’m just dropping this off for what its worth (maybe nothing) What about Umber or Sienna? The burnts are browns, but the raws are orangy. Ok. I’m not here now… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pale-red/233477.md?page=4)