(ôrˈĭnj, ŏrˈ-)
nouna. Any of several southeast Asian evergreen trees of the genus Citrus, widely cultivated in warm regions and having fragrant white flowers and round fruit with a yellowish or reddish rind and a sectioned, pulpy interior, especially C. sinensis, the sweet orange, and C. aurantium, the Seville or sour orange.
b. The fruit of any of these trees, having a sweetish, acidic juice.
- Any of several similar plants, such as the Osage orange and the mock orange.
- The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between red and yellow, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 590 to 630 nanometers; any of a group of colors between red and yellow in hue, of medium lightness and moderate saturation.
adjective- Of the color orange.
- Made from oranges.
- Tasting or smelling like oranges.
Related Forms:
- orˈang·y, orˈang·ey (-ĭn-jē) adjective
Word History: Oranges imported to China from the United States reflect a journey come full circle, for the orange had worked its way westward for centuries, originating in China, then being introduced to India, and traveling on to the Middle East, into Europe, and finally to the New World. The history of the word
orange keeps step with this journey only part of the way. The word is possibly ultimately from Dravidian, a family of languages spoken in southern India and northern Sri Lanka. The Dravidian word or words were adopted into the Indo-European language Sanskrit with the form
nāraṅgaḥ. As the fruit passed westward, so did the word, as evidenced by Persian
nārang and Arabic
nāranj. Arabs brought the first oranges to Spain, and the fruit rapidly spread throughout Europe. The important word for the development of our term is Old Italian
melarancio, derived from
mela, “fruit,” and
arancio, “orange tree,” from Arabic
nāranj. Old Italian
melarancio was translated into Old French as
pume orenge, the
o replacing the
a because of the influence of the name of the town of Orange, from which oranges reached the northern part of France. The final stage of the odyssey of the word was its borrowing into English from the Old French form
orenge. Our word is first recorded in Middle English in a text probably composed around 1380, a time preceding the arrival of the orange in the New World.
