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Orange is both a noun and an adjective in the English language. In both cases, it refers primarily to the orange fruit and the colour orange, but has many other derivative meanings.

Before the English-speaking world was exposed to the fruit, the colour was referred to as geoluhread in Old English, which translates roughly into Modern English as yellow-red.

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[edit] Etymology

Orange derives from Indian, Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree", with borrowings through Persian nārang, Arabic nāranj, Spanish naranja, Late Latin arangia, Italian arancia or arancio, and Old French orenge, in chronological order. The first appearance in English dates from the 14th century. The name of the colour is largely derived from the fruit, first appearing in this sense in the 16th century.

The Emperor Baber, in his memoirs, mentions the "naranj" as one of the kinds of Citrus he found in India. ... He says little about the Indian oranges, but a good deal about those of Central Asia, and the N.W. frontier of India. He adds that in the latter part it is called narank. The kinds he alludes to are evidently sweet oranges of some sort (vide Baber's memoirs, Appendix No. 1(a)) Risso, in his monograph, gives "narandj" as the Arabic Synonym of the Citrus Bigaradia, the Seville orange, and Alphonse de Candolle credits the Arabs with having transported the bitter orange from Western India to Persia, Arabia, Syria, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Arab physicians are known to have used it in their pharmaceutical preparations. The Arab name naranj may or may not have been derived from nagrung, the supposed Sanskrit name for orange.

—Bonavia, 1888[1]

Multiple sources conjecture that the Sanskrit word itself derives from an unknown Dravidian source, based on the historical spread of oranges through the world (cf. Tamil 'nram', Tulu 'nregi').

According to another source[citation needed], the name 'Orange' comes from Tamil word 'Aru'('Or') meaning 'Six' + 'Anju' ('ange') meaning 'five'. The fruit typically has 11 pieces inside which when you cut into half has 6('Aru') pieces in one half and 5('five') pieces on the other.

There is disagreement as to whether the Old French borrowed the Italian melarancio (with mela "fruit", i.e. melarancio "fruit of the orange tree") as pume orenge (with pume "fruit") (deMause, 1998), or whether it borrowed Arabic nāranj, with no intermediate step (AHD, 2000). In any case, the initial n was lost before the word entered English.

The French shift from arenge to orenge may have been influenced by the French word or (gold) — in reference to the colour of oranges — or by the name of Orange, France, a major distribution point of oranges to northern regions. The name of the village did not derive from the word: in Old Provençal, it was known as Aurenja, with the initial sound later shifting (McPhee, 1975) (the original Roman name of the village was Arausio and came from a Celtic water god). The village name and fruit name thus converged coincidentally, one becoming associated with the other (conflation).

Later, the sovereign principality of Orange was the property of the House of Orange (later House of Orange-Nassau), which adopted both fruit and colour (already associated with the principality) as its symbols. Many things were in turn named after this royal House, which is the present ruling monarchy of the Netherlands. Because of this ruling dynasty, orange has in turn become the national colour of the Netherlands.

In Dutch the fruit is known as Sinaasappel or Appelsien (both derived from "Chinese apples"), and words similar to Appelsien are found in a number of Germanic, Slavic, and Ural-Altaic languages. A few other Slavic languages use words derived from Latin "Pomum aurantium", which similarly meant "Golden apples" -- as did the Ancient Greek term, Chrisomilia. The modern Hebrew "Tapuah Zahav" means "Golden Apple" and is usually shortened to "Tapuz".

Some South East European tongues name orange after the country name Portugal, which was formerly the main source of imports of sweet oranges. Examples are Bulgarian portokal [портокал], Greek portokali [πορτοκάλι], Romanian portocală and Georgian phortokhali [ფორთოხალი]. Also in South Italian dialects (Neapolitan), orange is named portogallo or purtualle, literally "the Portuguese ones". Related names can also be found in non-European languages: Turkish Portakal, Arabic al-burtuqal [البرتقال], Persian porteghal [پرتقال] and Amharic birtukan.

See this comprehensive discussion about the etymology of the word "Orange" in various languages.

[edit] Rhyme

It is widely accepted that no single English word is a true rhyme for orange, though there are half rhymes such as lozenge, flange, Stonehenge, or porridge.[2] . A commonly referred to word on this subject, however controversial, is "door hinge". Although sporange, a variant of sporangium, is an eye rhyme for orange, it is not a true rhyme as its second syllable is pronounced with an unreduced vowel [-ændʒ], and often with stress.

However, there are proper nouns which are true rhymes, including Blorenge, a hill in Wales, Dorange, a town in France, and Gorringe, a surname. US Naval Commander Henry Honychurch Gorringe, the captain of the USS Gettysburg who discovered Gorringe Ridge in 1875[3], led Arthur Guiterman to quip in "Local Note":

In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark
Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe,
Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for "orange."

Compounds or sequences of words may give true or near rhymes in some accents. Examples include door-hinge, torn hinge, or inch, a wrench.

Enjambment can also provide for rhymes. One example is Willard Espy's poem, "The Unrhymable Word: Orange":

The four eng-
ineers
Wore orange
brassieres.

An even more strained example by Tom Lehrer relies on the New York-New Jersey accent's way of pronouncing orange as "ar-ange":

Eating an orange
While making love
Makes for bizarre enj-
oyment thereof.

Composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel contrived a rhyme in the song "Oranges Poranges". It was sung by the Witchiepoo character (played by Billie Hayes) on the show H.R. Pufnstuf.[4]

Oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says?
there ain't no rhyme for oranges!

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bonavia, E. (1888) The Cultivated Oranges and Lemons of India and Ceylon. online
  2. ^ AskOxford: are there any words that rhyme with orange?
  3. ^ History of NOAA Ocean Exploration: The Breakthrough Years (1866-1922)
  4. ^ The World of Sid & Marty Krofft Fact Sheet

[edit] See also