which came first the fruit ORANGE or the colour ORANGE?

Answer 1

I'd have to say the fruit.

Answer 2

I'd love to know the answer to this chicken and egg question now you've asked it. (Damn it man/woman, why did you have to ask?)
There may be a horticulturist out there ready to shoot me down in flames, but I would hazard that the fruit came first, purely on the grounds that the carrot is originally the colour of a parsnip and the mutation was deemed to be more attractive commercially.
My assumption here is that you meant was the orange fruit orange. If you didn't mean that then, conveniently ignoring the matter of etymology, I'd think the odds are billions to one that the colour came first. Over 100s 1000,000s of years there have been many plant species evolve and die off and many millions exist today. Yet there are a limited number of visible colours and therefore it stands to reason that here are millions of plants that have orange in them. There was a time when all foliage was green and no fruit to speak of. It's more likely that plantlife evolved the colour millions of years before the fruit. It's even postulated that dinosaurs were multi coloured creatures.

Answer: the colour orange (on the grounds of probability). I've convinced myself, have I convinced you?

Answer 3

The colour, of course. Colour exist everywhere in this universe and before anything. Fruit orange exists only on Earth.

Answer 4

I reckon the fruit ORANGE came first because the fruit would have had to be grown before it could be given a colour name

Answer 5

The fruit existed first, but were not called oranges until explorers discovered them and called them Oranges due to their colour.

Fruit existed before humans, but the word orange for colour was invented before humans discovered oranges.

Answer 6

Before the orange fruit was introduced to the English-speaking world, the colour was referred to (in Old English) as geoluhread, which transliterates into Modern English variously as yellow-red, yellowred, or yellored (all pronounced the same). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(colour)

The word "orange" comes from Sanskrit "narang".... Orange derives from Sanskrit nāraṅgaḥ "orange tree", but another explanation tries to establish a link to a Dravidian root “fragrant”. Compare Tamil narandam [நரந்தம்] “bitter orange”, nagarukam [நாகருகம்] “sweet orange” and nari [நாரி] “fragrance. The Sanskrit/dravidian word was borrowed into European languages through Persian nārang, Armenian nārinj, Arabic nāranj, Spanish naranja, Late Latin arangia, Italian arancia or arancio, and Old French orenge, in chronological order. The first appearance in English dates from the 14th century. The forms starting with n- are older; this initial n- may have been mistaken as part of the indefinite article, in languages with articles ending with an -n sound (eg. in French une norenge may have been taken as une orenge). The name of the colour is derived from the fruit, first appearing in this sense in 1542. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_%28fruit%29

Answer 7

Colour - it was there in the skies of earth and the volcanoes long before anything like an orange tree developed and fruited.

Answer 8

The color existed before the fruit in terms of creation. But the name of the color or name of the fruit ,"orange", came after and was named after these things.

Answer 9

the fruit orange is orange coloured so they prob occured at the same time!! the fruit was 1st as was prob growing b4 man even learnt 2 speak (or even existed)

Answer 10

The fruit and then the colour

Answer 11

I dont know. I want to know why if an orange is called orange, how come grapes aren't called purples?