The color orange has a complex and fascinating history behind its name. Long before the sweet, juicy citrus fruit known as the orange arrived in Europe and eventually gained its namesake color, there was no specific name for the vibrant orange hue nestled between red and yellow on the color spectrum. Let’s explore the winding etymological journey that led to the word “orange” referring to a color, fruit, and drink.
The Early History of the Color Orange
For centuries, the color orange did not have its own distinctive name in European languages. Ancient texts described orange as a shade of red, yellow, or saffron. Saffron, made from the dried stigmas of crocus flowers, was used as a spice, fragrance, medicine, and yellow-orange dye dating back to Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Related dyes like dragon’s blood (a bright red resin), sandarac (a red-orange resin), and cinnabar (mercury sulfide) provided opaque orange shades. But opaque, muted orange was not considered its own unique color.
Without a named term for it, the vivid orange hue was referred to as red or yellow of a particular quality. For example, Old English texts might describe orange as a “deep yellow” or “bright red.” The 12th century Middle English poem “The Owl and the Nightingale” describes the orange beak of a goldfinch as “red as fire.”
The Influence of Fruit Names on Color Words
In many cultures, orange fruit names doubled as color descriptors before orange became standardized as a color name. For example, the Sanskrit word for orange fruit was “naranga,” which later influenced the Persian word “naranj.” The Persian word “naranj” referred to the ripe orange color of the fruit. The first recorded use of “naranj” as a color term was in AD 824.
The Arabic word for the orange fruit, “naranj,” also became a color term by the 10th century. However, over the next several hundred years, “red” and “yellow” remained the predominant names for the orange hue in Western culture.
The Arrival of Orange Fruit in Europe
Sweet oranges likely originated in Southeast Asia thousands of years ago before spreading west to India and the Middle East. Traders brought the first orange trees to Europe around 1500 CE. Spain and Portugal became centers for orange cultivation.
There are a few theories about how orange trees first arrived in Europe:
- Italian explorer Marco Polo may have introduced oranges to Italy after traveling to China in the 13th century.
- Arabs may have brought orange trees to Spain and Portugal when they conquered the Iberian Peninsula during the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 8th century.
- Genoese traders may have carried orange trees from the Middle East to ports like Sevilla and Lisbon as exotic garden plants.
The new orange fruit quickly became a prized garden specimen and status symbol among aristocrats in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Wealthy nobles grew orange trees in private gardens, leading to the widespread misconception that oranges first arrived in Europe as ornamental plants before their potential as a food source was realized.
How the Orange Fruit Got Its Name
When orange trees first arrived from Asia, Europeans did not have a name for the new golden fruit. Many languages simply called the exotic import a “golden apple” at first:
- Italian: pomo d’oro
- German: Apfelsine
- Dutch: appelsien/sinaasappel
- Russian: апельсин (apel’sin)
- Norwegian: appelsin
Why was the orange often considered a variety of apple? Botanically, oranges belong to the rue or citrus family (Rutaceae), unrelated to apple trees. However, the round, golden color likely inspired the comparison to small apples, especially diminutive golden apples. Additionally, oranges were grafted onto existing apple rootstock when first brought to Europe, physically linking them to apple trees.
The Spanish and Portuguese translated the Sanskrit word “naranga” to “naranja,” likely influenced by contact with Arabic traders familiar with the fruit. “Naranja” evolved into the modern Spanish word for orange.
From Spain and Portugal, the name “naranja” spread to France as “orange” and then to England. By the late 16th century, Europeans converged on the Spanish-derived “orange” as the common name for both the tree and fruit.
Orange Distinguished as a Unique Color Term
While the orange fruit spread across Europe and the Mediterranean under variations of the Arabic-influenced “naranja,” orange did not immediately become established as a distinct color name. European languages continued to describe orange hues as types of red or yellow.
By the early 16th century, some writers and artists compared vivid reddish-yellows to the color of ripe oranges. But using the fruit name “orange” to describe color was not universal practice. For example, Michelangelo described the robe of his Sistine Chapel masterpiece Night as “un bel giallo,” “a beautiful yellow,” rather than as orange.
By the mid-16th century, Spanish painters led a stylistic shift toward realistically depicting varied gradients of color. Spanish artists used “naranja” as a precise color term in both literature and art earlier than other European traditions. This influence ultimately popularized “orange” as a color name across Western languages.
When Was Orange First Used as a Color Term in English?
The first recorded use of “orange” as a color term in English dates back to 1512 in a will left by King Henry VIII referring to “A long gown of black velvet upon a gown of orange tawny cloth of gold.” For the next century or so, orange in English oscillated between describing the fruit and selective shades of reddish yellow bound to textile dyes.
By the late 17th century, orange solidified as a color term for the spectrum between red and yellow, aided by new dye techniques allowing consistent reproduction of true orange and yellow hues. The widening use of “orange” as a color term followed the orange fashion trend ignited by Dutch Protestant revolutionary William of Orange.
The Orange Fashion Phenomenon
In the mid-16th century, the fine orange silks and satins coming from Italy’s export of orange trees inspired orange as an elite fashion trend, especially among Dutch Protestants. Only the upper classes could afford expensive orange textiles dyed with saffron.
When William I of Orange led the Dutch Revolt against Spanish Catholic rule in the 1560s, he popularized orange as a patriotic and political allegiance. Orangists wearing the symbolic color demonstrated their Protestant faith and independence from Catholic Spain. Over the next century, orange flourished as a fashionable and politicized color defining Dutch identity.
As cheaper dye techniques spread orange to lower classes and England’s William III continued Dutch-inspired orange style, orange became firmly ingrained as a standard color name during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
| Decade | Orange in Fashion |
|---|---|
| 1560s | Orange dresses and doublets fashionable among Dutch aristocracy |
| 1620s-1640s | Mass production of orange ribbons supports growth of Orangism in the Netherlands |
| 1650s | Parliamentarian puritans in England wear orange as a visible political alliance |
| 1670s | Orange emerges across classes in Netherlands as factories dye with cheaper techniques |
| 1680s | England’s King William III makes orange fashionable among English elite |
Why Did It Take So Long for Orange to Become a Color Name?
Orange lagged behind other chromatic colors like red, yellow, green, and blue in acquiring a definitive name for several reasons:
- Transience of organic orange dyes – Saffron, turmeric, and other orange plant dyes were expensive and prone to fading quickly. This made durable mass production of orange fabric challenging until the late 17th century.
- Association with red – Red held privileged cultural positions in prestigious textiles like Roman purple toga trim and clergy robes. Orange was often considered a shade of powerfully symbolic red.
- Association with gold – The golden yellow-orange glow of processed metals and dyes like cinnabar resonated with symbolic solar and alchemical associations. Orange was described as a shade of golden light.
While shades like crimson, lemon, lime, emerald, and sky blue each had millennia-old cultural significance, orange was a newcomer that did not arise from a single plant source like other dyes. Instead, orange existed in a liminal space between red, yellow, and gold symbolic associations that prevented it from clearly differentiating as a color term for many centuries.
When Were Other Chromatic Color Terms First Used?
Here is a timeline of when some of the major chromatic color names became commonly used distinct terms:
- Black – prehistory
- White – prehistory
- Red – prehistory
- Yellow/Green – circa 1000 BCE
- Blue – circa 2500 BCE
- Purple – 1400 BCE
- Orange – circa 1510 CE
Why Did Orange Become Controversial in Later Centuries?
In the century following the universal acceptance of orange as a color name, extreme interpretations of sumptuary laws prohibiting extravagant dress temporarily vilified orange. Both Protestant England and Catholic France introduced strict rules on permitted colors and fabric types at different periods between the mid-17th to late 18th century.
While orange had become a staple color beloved for its cheerfulness and vibrancy, moral campaigns against decadence turned orange (along with other bright colors like red and yellow) into a shameful affront against humility and piety. However, the controversy was relatively short-lived and based more on political posturing than actual societal rejection of the color orange itself.
Sumptuary Laws Discouraging Orange
| Year | Restriction on Orange |
|---|---|
| 1608 | English proclamation bans lower classes from wearing orange |
| 1685 | French king bans all subjects outside nobility from wearing orange |
| 1713 | Religious extremists pressure English Parliament to prohibit orange |
While orange fell out of official fashion for periods under sweeping sumptuary restrictions, it remained a beloved color among the general population. As enforcement of unpopular fashion laws waned, orange regained its popularity, especially among Dutch Protestants who considered it a cultural badge of pride.
Conclusion
The complex history behind naming the color orange intertwines art, economics, politics, religion, science, and technology. While orange pigments and dyes existed across various ancient cultures, orange was not standardized as a spectral color term until the 16th century following the introduction of orange fruit to Europe. Linguistic association with red and yellow, privileged status of competing colors like purple and gold, and difficulty producing stable orange dyes inhibited orange from earning recognition as a color name for many centuries. By the 18th century, orange finally overcame barriers to become universally accepted in Western languages as a color name indelibly linked to citrus fruit.
