why is a orange a orange, but a lemon isn't a yellow or yellow is lemon?

Answer 1

If you trace the origin of the word 'yellow' back far enough, you'll find that it IS named after a plant... just a different one!

It originally comes from the Greek 'khloe' meaning a 'young green shoot' (link 1). Young shoots are often edible (and thus important for herders, if not farmers) and they're also often either yellow or green... and in fact, 'khloe' did eventually warp through use to become BOTH 'yellow' AND 'green' (linguistics is odd, sometimes).

So the simple reason why 'lemons' aren't called 'yellows' is that something else was ALREADY yellow!

Answer 2

An orange is orange because it is one of the few articles of food (especially before processing) that was actually that colour. The word itself is derived from the sanskrit Narangah meaning `"tree of oranges."

The lemon is not called a "yellow" because it is not the only fruit of that colour. Grapefruits, bananas, squash are all yellow and can't all be called Yellows.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Because there are so many things in nature that are naturally yellow that it would be confusing as compared to an orange. For example. Sunshine is yellow, some hair color is yellow, urine is yellow etc. I don't know, but that's just my wild guess.

Answer 4

Maybe when the orange(as in fruit) was found, they didnt know what to call it so called it orange because of the colour. or maybe the colour was named after the fruit?
(this is all guesses)

Answer 5

I'm giving the good doctor a thumbs up only because he provided me with a very decent etymological link.