Orange

[elena]

what name came first, the orange as in the colour or the orange as in the fruit ? who invented the name?

[Quizmonster]

The name almost certainly originated on India's northern borders. The word existed in the ancient language, Sanskrit, as 'naranga' and is, in modern HIndi still, 'narangi'.

It came to us probably via Arabic and Spanish and still had that opening letter 'n'. That was dropped in English in much the same way as the 'n' in 'nadder' was. 'Nadder' was the name of a snake, so when people spoke of 'a nadder' that's what they meant. Eventually, the 'n' peeled off and attached itself to the 'a', so now we have 'an adder'. Thus 'a naranj' became 'an orange'.

The earliest use in English of 'orange' to mean the fruit dates back to the 14th century. Its use as a colour-name dates only to the 16th. As to who 'invented' the name, the answer would have to be "the Sanskrit-speaking people of Northern India".

[Janetex]

AND how long before the bible lists "orrinj" as an acceptable pronunciation? :(

[stanbee]

according to the OED" orange" referring to a fruit traces to an alliterative poem as far back as 1044, qv.

[Quizmonster]

Stanbee is absolutely right as to the earliest date. I made the error because - in my volume of the OED - the date 1044 appears in normal print, whereas dates for appropriate quotations are always printed in bold. The second such date - 1387 - was thus printed so that was the one that caught my eye. My apologies, Elena, though the earlier date does not change the sequence in which the fruit/colour meanings appeared nor the original word-source.