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Orange (colour)

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The colour orange occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum at a wavelength of about 585 – 620 nm, and has a hue of 30° in HSV colour space. The complementary colour of orange is azure, a slightly greenish blue. With pigments such as paints or inks, a mixture of the subtractive primary colours in the proportion of 75% yellow and 25% magenta produce the secondary colour orange. Orange pigments are largely in the ochre or cadmium families, and absorb mostly blue light.

Orange (colour wheel)

At above right is the colour wheel colour orange. This is the colour orange as defined in HSV colour space; that is, it is the hue midway between red and yellow. It is numerically halfway between red and yellow in a gamma-compressed RGB colour space, and is diametrically opposite azure, on the HSV colour wheel.

Etymology of orange

The colour is named after the orange fruit, introduced to Europe via the Indo-European word nāranja. Before this was introduced to the English-speaking world, the colour was referred to (in Old English) as geoluhread, which translates into Modern English as yellow-red.

The first recorded use of orange as a colour name in English was in 1512, in the court of King Henry VIII.

Orange web colours

Orange (web colour)

Web colour orange, defined as FFA500, is the only named colour defined in CSS that is not also defined in HTML 4.01

Dark orange (web colour)

The web colour called dark orange is displayed at right.

Additional variations on the colour orange

Orange peel

Displayed at right is the actual colour of the outer skin of a typical orange. This colour is called orange peel. It is the same colour as the fruit for which it was named. In contrast to blue or red, this colour is well determined.

A discussion of the difference between the colours orange and orange peel is given in Maerz and Paul.

The first recorded use of orange peel as a colour name in English was in 1839.

Tangerine

At right is the colour tangerine, a shade of orange that is the colour of the tangerine fruit.

The first recorded use of tangerine as a colour name in English was in 1899.

Carrot orange

Carrot orange is a tint of orange that is the colour of the raw carrot vegetable.

The first recorded use of carrot orange as a colour name in English was in 1684.

Burnt orange

Burnt orange has been in use as a colour name for this deep shade of orange since 1915.

This colour is one variation that is used as a school colour of the Clemson University, Virginia Tech, Auburn University, and The University of Texas at Austin.

Burnt Orange was popular in interior design in the 1970s.

So-called redheads actually have hair that averages a burnt orange colour.

Brown

Brown is actually derived from the orange part (orange + grey) of the colour spectrum. It can be described as dark orange.

The first recorded use of brown as a colour name in English was in 1000.

Orange in human culture

Academia

Cosmetology

  • People whose natural hair colour is metaphorically described in English as being red, i.e. redheads, actually have hair that averages a burnt orange colour.

Geography and history

  • Orange is the national colour of The Netherlands, because its royal family used to own the principality of Orange (the title is still used for the Dutch heir apparent). There is no etymological connection between orange (the fruit and colour) and Orange (the name of the principality), and the similarity is fortuitous. Orange is the colour of choice for many of the national sports teams and their supporters. The nickname of the Dutch national football team is Oranje, the Dutch word for orange. In the modern flag of the Netherlands, red substitutes the original orange, but on royal birthdays, the flag has an additional orange banner. Most geographical usages of the word orange can be traced back to Dutch maritime power in the 17th century.
  • In Ireland the use of orange dates from the reign of William of Orange, the Protestant English king and a Dutch stadholder.

Heraldry

  • In English heraldry, orange is considered synonymous with the tincture tenne. However, its use as a heraldic tincture is relatively rare, as it is considered a "stain" (a deprecated tincture) by some. In continental heraldry, tenne is more often deemed to denote a burnt orange colour.

Holidays

Military

National colours

  • Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands and is seen on its original flag and coat of arms.
  • Orange, white, and green are the national colours of Ireland, Niger, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Mysticism

  • In the metaphysics of the New Age Prophetess, Alice A. Bailey, in her system called the Seven Rays which classifies humans into seven different metaphysical personality types, the fifth ray of concrete science is represented by the colour orange. People who have this metaphysical personality type are said to be on the Orange Ray.
  • Orange is used to symbolically represent the second (Swadhisthana) chakra.
  • Psychics who claim to be able to observe the aura with their third eye report that an orange aura is associated with intellectual ambition.

Ophthalmology

  • A woman named Susan Hogan was born with an extra set of cones that are sensitive in the orange range, as well having the red, green, and blue cones that humans with normal colour vision (i.e. trichromats) possess. She is therefore classified as a tetrachromat, but her extra type of cone is an orange cone instead of the ultraviolet cone possessed by animals such as birds who are tetrachromats in nature. It is estimated that while normal humans can see about 1,000,000 different colours, tetrachromats such as Ms. Hogan can see 100,000,000 different colours. This is because each additional type of cones reacts with the other types of cones in such a way that an addition of a new type of cone means an organism can see 100 times as many colours. (This means that a pentachromat would be able to see 10,000,000,000 (ten billion) different colours.)

Penology

Politics

Prosody

  • Orange is often quoted (along with Purple and Silver (color)) as a word that doesn't rhyme with any other word in the English language. This is debatable - see Orange (word)#Rhyme. However, the Oxford Rhyming Dictionary does show both these words as having half-rhymes (such as lozenge with orange and salver with silver).
    In a children's book of verse, in a poem titled "Color," there are these lines:

What is red? a poppy's red, in its barley bed.
What is orange? Why, an orange--just an orange!

Raves

  • Orange is the favorite colour for people to wear to rave dances.

Religion

Safety signalling

  • Orange is the contrasting colour of blue and is highly visible against a clear sky. Therefore, shades of orange such as safety orange are often used in high visibility clothing and other safety equipment and objects.

Security

Sport

Transportation

References

See also

External links



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Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 12:42:17 PDT (GMT -0700)
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