Orange (word)

Ambersweet oranges

The word "orange" refers to a fruit and a color, and has other related meanings.

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

The word is derived from a Dravidian language, and it passed through numerous other languages including Sanskrit and based on Nārang in Persian and after that Old French before reaching the English language. The earliest uses of the word in English refer to the fruit, and the color was later named after the fruit. Before the English-speaking world was exposed to the fruit, the color was referred to as "yellow-red" (geoluread in Old English) or "red-yellow".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

"Orange" has no true rhyme. There are several half rhymes or near-rhymes, as well as some proper nouns and compound words or phrases that rhyme with it. This lack of rhymes has inspired many humorous poems and songs.

Etymology

The word "orange" entered Middle English from Old French and Anglo-Norman orenge.<ref name=OED>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The earliest recorded use of the word in English is from the 13th century and referred to the fruit. The first recorded use of "orange" as a colour name in English was in 1502, in a description of clothing purchased for Margaret Tudor.<ref name="StClair2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other sources cite the first recorded use as 1512, in a will now filed with the Public Record Office.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It is generally thought that Old French calqued the Italian melarancio ("fruit of the orange tree", with mela "fruit") as pume orenge (with pume "fruit").<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Although pume orenge is attested earlier than melarancio in available written sources, lexicographers believe that the Italian word is actually older.<ref name=OED />

The word ultimately derives from a Dravidian language – possibly Tamil Template:Lang nāram or Telugu Template:Lang nāriṃja or Malayalam Template:Lang nāraŋŋa — via Sanskrit Template:Lang nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree". From there the word entered Persian Template:Lang nārang and then Arabic Template:Lang nāranj.<ref name=OED /> The initial n was lost through rebracketing in Italian and French, though some varieties of Arabic lost the n earlier.<ref name=OED /> Compare Spanish cognate naranja with initial n

The place named Orange has a separate etymology. The Roman-Celtic settlement was founded in 36 or 35 BC and originally named Arausio, after a Celtic water god.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Principality of Orange was named for this place and not for the color. Some time after the sixteenth century, though, the color orange was adopted as a canting symbol of the House of Orange-Nassau.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The color eventually came to be associated with Protestantism, as a result of the participation by the House of Orange on the Protestant side in the French Wars of Religion, the Irish campaigns, and the Dutch Eighty Years' War.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Pronunciation

Template:Further With forest, warrant, horrible, etc., orange forms a class of English words where the North American pronunciation of what is pronounced as Template:IPA, the vowel in lot, in British Received Pronunciation varies between the vowel in north (Template:IPA or Template:IPA depending on the cot–caught merger) and that in lot (Template:IPA or Template:IPA depending on the father–bother merger). The former is more common while the latter is mainly found on the East Coast of the United States.<ref>Template:Accents of English Pages 136–137, 476, 479, 525.</ref> While many dictionaries of North American English include the north pronunciation as the primary or only variant,<ref>Template:Cite LPD</ref><ref>Template:Cite EPD</ref><ref>Template:Cite DPCE</ref><ref>Template:Cite American Heritage Dictionary</ref><ref>Template:Cite Dictionary.com</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Merriam-Webster lists the lot variant first and glosses the north variant as "chiefly Northern & Midland" for orange but not for other words in the class (forest etc.).<ref>Template:Cite Merriam-Webster</ref> Its Collegiate Dictionary listed north first until the 1973 eighth edition,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but has flipped the order since the 1983 ninth edition.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Merriam-Webster is also unique in including monosyllabic variants (Template:IPAc-en).

Rhyme

No common English word is a full rhyme for "orange", though there are half rhymes, such as "hinge", "lozenge", "syringe", and "porridge".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Slang and otherwise uncommon examples exist. Although this property is not unique to the word—one study of 5,411 one-syllable English words found 80 words with no rhymes<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>—the lack of rhyme for "orange" has garnered significant attention, and inspired many humorous 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 Template:IPA, and often stressed.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

There are a number of proper nouns which rhyme or nearly rhyme with "orange", including The Blorenge, a mountain in Wales, and Gorringe, a surname. US Naval Commander Henry Honychurch Gorringe, the captain of the Template:USS, who discovered Gorringe Ridge in 1875,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> led Arthur Guiterman to quip in "Local Note":<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The slang word "blorange", a hair color between blond and orange, is a rhyme. It is attested from the early 2000s and appears in fashion-related media from about 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Various linguistic or poetic devices provide for rhymes in some accents.

Compound words or phrases may give true or near rhymes. Examples include "door-hinge", "torn hinge", "or inch", and "a wrench". William Shepard Walsh attributes this verse featuring two multiple-word rhymes to Walter William Skeat:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Enjambment can also provide for rhymes. One example is Willard Espy's poem, "The Unrhymable Word: Orange".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Another example by Tom Lehrer relies on the /ˈɑrəndʒ/ pronunciation commonly used on the East Coast of the United States:<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Rapper Eminem is noted for his ability to bend words so that they rhyme.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In his song "Business" from the album The Eminem Show, he makes use of such word-bending to rhyme "orange":<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Nonce words are sometimes contrived to rhyme with "orange". Composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel wrote the song "Oranges Poranges" to be sung by the Witchiepoo character on the television programme H.R. Pufnstuf.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Rhymes with Orange, a syndicated comic strip

External links

• Orange Rhymez!, a website that finds half-rhymes for "orange"