# What came first, orange or oranges? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 16, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709 "2004-03-16T21:50:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![locutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90ced4/32.png) [@locutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/locutus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/1 "2004-03-16T21:50:13Z")
Okay, so if “The first English use of the word “orange” as a color adjective appears to have been in 1620,” then how did english-speaking people refer to the color orange before that time? ---
**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 16, 2004, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/2 "2004-03-16T21:57:51Z")
“Red,” “yellow,” or “reddish yellow.” ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/3 "2004-03-16T22:26:23Z")
This topic has been addressed here: Pale Red? > **[Pale Red?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244189)** > > In today’s column (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1\_344a.html), Cecil states that the adjective, “orange”, denoting a particular color, came into usage around 1620. Obviously, the actual color existed before that. So what did pre-1620 speakers... In short: possibly nothing, except ‘jaundiced pomegranate’ It is not uncommon for some languages to lack terms for one or more of the six colors on the primary color wheel. Most European languages do not have a word for the color unrelated to the fruit. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/4 "2004-03-16T22:58:06Z")
Or sometimes by technical words, such as “tenné” in heraldry. Most languages don’t have a word for “pink”. Russian has two colors where we have only “blue”. Welsh has two colors where we have “blue”, “green”, and “brown” (although this is changing under English influence). And, no, it’s not because different peoples have different color senses. See Cecil’s [Could early man only see three colors?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_168b.html) and [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=686) ---
**Author:** ![locutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90ced4/32.png) [@locutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/locutus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/5 "2004-03-16T23:07:51Z")
Facinating. Interesting notions all. It IS difficult for me to accept that english speakers would look at a rainbow (which would occur with amazing frequency in rainy old england, I believe) and not have names for each of the colors in it. Perhaps they called it saffron, rust, ‘jaundiced pomegranate’, or many of the other suggestions. I’m not above believing that there was no name for it, it just seems unlikely. However, what life was like before 1620 is anyone’s guess I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/6 "2004-03-17T00:14:30Z")
You don’t have to guess. There are languages _today_ that have no word for “orange”. Some of them have no word for “blue”, or “green”, or “yellow”, or “red”, either. ---
**Author:** ![locutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90ced4/32.png) [@locutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/locutus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/7 "2004-03-17T00:27:02Z")
I forgot that important point. It’s always facinating when my ethnocentric perspective rears it’s head. Seriously, when someone who doesn’t have a word for orange sees a rainbow, doesn’t it strike them as odd that some of the colors don’t have their own name? I guess not. Do they perhaps call it “orange” using the english word? Or really, just yellowish-red or somesuch satisfies them? I can understand mauve and such, but it seems to basic! Maybe its because as an American, colors were one of the first things I was taught. Perhaps we place a higher value on color as a society? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/8 "2004-03-17T00:33:14Z")
> [@locutus](#): > > Seriously, when someone who doesn’t have a word for orange sees a rainbow, doesn’t it strike them as odd that some of the colors don’t have their own name? Doesn’t it strike you as odd that we call “Chocolate brown” and “light brown” by the same name, even though they’re very different? And as for rainbows, there’s a post that can be searched for explaining that some cultures see 6 colours, and some 7. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/9 "2004-03-18T06:51:19Z")
It gets worse. _No_ human culture has a word for each color of the rainbow, nor even all human cultures combined. A rainbow does not have discrete bands of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. In fact, it’s a continuum of colors, with every gradation represented. So red is in there, and so is orange, and a color midway between red and orange, and a color a quarter of the way from red to orange, and a color a tenth of the way from red to orange, and a color a millionth of the way from red to orange. Since there are an infinite number of colors but only a finite number of words, it’s clear that most colors of the rainbow don’t have a name. ---
**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, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-came-first-orange-or-oranges/234709/10 "2004-03-18T13:59:01Z")
While it is true that the degree of differance between red and orange, or orange and yellow, is no greater than the difference between, say, saffron and lemon, and most people get along fine without using either of those commonly, it does seem an odd omission to the modern mind.