Talk:orange

which came first
Does anybody know which use came first for "orange." Did the fruit come first, then the color, then the town of Orange in France and then the Dutch royal family or was did the Dutch royal family pick the color and apply it to the fruit?

Why do we need the French information at all ? This is the English Wiktionary. If you want to know about the French word 'Orange', surely you go to http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/orange--Richardb 12:03, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Surely the etymology of an English word is a valid question on an English dictionary. --Taejo 6:42, 15 July 2005

The question that really needs to be asked is: What rhymes with oranges?


 * I don't know about oranges, but perhaps scorange rhymes with orange? --Taejo 6:42, 15 July 2005

The town of Orange in France, once being the center of trade of citrus fruits, gave it's name to the orange. The colour of the fruit used to be called yellowred and was replaced by orange. The royal family of The Netherlands inherited the title Prince of Orange. Although in 1702 this area in France was no longer their possesion they remain the right to use this title for the oldest child of the family.
 * Orange, France, was not named for the fruit; it is believed to have been named for a Celtic god, Arausio (see Bunson 1995, A Dictionary of the Roman Empire). The color came to be a symbol of the House of Orange (originally based in Orange) only in the 16th century. The name of the fruit entered English from French in the 13th century (OED).

Discussion from RFC:

reduce encyclopedic material in French proper noun section; put something similar in English section. &mdash; Paul G 15:47, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Suggest just move the Proper Noun to the Primary (English) section, since the place names are the same both in English and French.--Richardb 22:26, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why do we need the French information at all ? This is the English Wiktionary. If you want to know about the French word 'Orange', surely you go to http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/orange--Richardb 12:02, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Because Wiktionary's goal is to have all words from all languages. It is a translating dictionary as well as a "normal" dictionary. Only people who can read French can use the French Wiktionary well. Those who just need to look up a few French words use a translating dictionary designed for English speakers - that's us. &mdash; Hippietrail 12:42, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * that's an argument (queestionable) for having the translations there, possibly with a brief explanation agains the transaltion. Not a whole French entry in the English entry. By that argument we would have something like 150 different language entries all under the English language entry !
 * See beer parlour for discussion. Personally, I think trying to do this will kill the Wiktionary before it gets off the ground. There are basic words, like sport which have crap defintions still, whilst we are making time and space for epole to put 175 plus entries for words such as "Orange". --Richardb 14:06, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Translation dictionaries need to translate in both directions. Print translation dictionaries are either dedicated to one direction, come in two complementary volumes, or have both directions in one volume. Wiktionary is analogous to the last type.
 * When people have found and contributed 150 a word spelled exactly as "orange" from 150 languages we may well have 150 entries, but I think that's unlikely.
 * We have been doing this for some time and Wiktionary is only seeing an increase in use. I see no imminent death. If you feel that sport needs a better definition and you feel you are able to write a better definition, the please feel free to improve it. Trying to police what aspects contributors should work on is probably going to take a lot more energy and still be in vain. We're all volunteers so we'll all probably continue contributing what we enjoy contributing the most. I think it's a safe bet to say that the sport definition is improved quite a bit before the day orange reaches 150 definitions for separate languages. &mdash; Hippietrail 14:34, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * OK, fair enough. Not my bag, not my preference, but not my right to restrict. --Richardb 22:26, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I managed to add one more language in which the spelling Orange exists (German). I moved the proper nouns over from the French part to the English part and marked them up the way I think we do it over here. Polyglot 11:04, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

French adjective
Can somebody correct this? I don't know where to look for the template's syntax:
 * orange m. (f. orange, m. plural oranges, f. plural oranges)

should be:
 * orange m. (f. orange, m. plural orange, f. plural orange)

This adjective is invariable in French (as most colour adjectives derived from nouns). Palpalpalpal 07:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It's theoretically invariable. AFAICT it is actually used in the plural, like marron. I can put a note, though. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Danish word for the color "orange"
Based on a cursory review of several online sources, it seems that one of the, if not the only, Danish translation of the English word "orange," when denoting the color and not the fruit, is in fact "orange." 68.194.52.253 03:20, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Adjective?
Why is there no mention of the adjective "orange"? 120.22.42.88 05:02, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Because someone removed it. Reverted. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:06, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In English nouns can be and are often used attributively with a meaning parallel to their use as subjects and objects. If we had a separate adjective section for every definition of a noun used attributively we would need to duplicate most of the content of the noun section for them. See English adjectives for the tests we use to determine whether a definition of a term requires it to be called an adjective. DCDuring (talk) 15:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * But this isn't one of those. It meets a number of those tests, and is treated as an adjective in all the dictionaries I've checked. This is a basic color name that happens to have originated from the name of a fruit, but most people don't think of the fruit when they speak of the color. If you want to RFD this, feel free. In the meanwhile, this 2 decade old part-of-speech section should be left as it is. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)