Orange (word)

The word 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.

The colour was named for the fruit. Before the English-speaking world was exposed to the fruit, the colour was referred to as geoluhread (yellow-red) in Old English and Middle English.

Etymology

Orange derives from a Dravidian language—possibly Telugu naarinja or Malayalam naaranga or Tamil nāram—via Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree", with borrowings through Persian nārang, Arabic nāranj, and Old French and Anglo-Norman orenge, in chronological order. (Compare Italian regional arancia, arancio narancia, naranz etc; Spanish naranja, Portuguese laranja and Medieval Greek νεράντζιον.) The first appearance in English dates from the 13th century. The name of the colour is derived from the fruit, first appearing in this sense in the 16th century.

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

The place name Orange has a separate etymology. The Roman-Celtic settlement was founded in 36 or 35 BCE and originally named Arausio, after a Celtic water god. The Principality of Orange was named for this place. Some time after the sixteenth century, the colour orange was adopted as a symbol of the House of Orange-Nassau. The colour eventually came to be associated with Protestantism, due to participation by the House of Orange on the Protestant side in the French Wars of Religion and the Dutch Eighty Years' War.

Rhyme

It is widely accepted that no single English word is a true rhyme for orange, though there are half rhymes such as hinge, lozenge, syringe, flange, Stonehenge, or porridge. Despite the fact that this property is not unique to the word— one study of 5,411 one-syllable English words found 80 words with no rhymes— the lack of rhyme for orange has garnered significant attention, and inspired many humourous verses.

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 stressed.

There are a number of proper nouns which are almost true rhymes, including The Blorenge, a mountain in Wales, and Gorringe, a surname. US Naval Commander Henry Honychurch Gorringe, the captain of the USS Gettysburg who discovered Gorringe Ridge in 1875, 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."

Compound words or phrases may give true or near rhymes in some accents. Examples include door-hinge, torn hinge, or inch, and a wrench. An example of a compound solution is found in the limerick "Orange Rhyme" by Michael Gregorovich:

There once was this girl Angeline

Who knew how all things should have been

When they said "Get the door, Ang",

She said "It is orange

But should have been painted pine green"

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

The four eng-

ineers

Wore orange

brassieres.

Another example by Tom Lehrer relies on the way many Americans pronounce orange as /ɑrəndʒ/, as opposed to /orəndʒ/:

Eating an orange

While making love

Makes for bizarre enj-

oyment thereof.

Composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel contrived a nonce word rhyme in the song "Oranges Poranges", sung by the Witchiepoo character on the television programme H.R. Pufnstuf.

Oranges poranges, who says,

oranges poranges, who says,

oranges poranges, who says?

there ain't no rhyme for oranges!

See also

• English words with uncommon properties
• Orange (fruit)
• Orange (color)