Basically red. The names for orange and purple are pretty recent inventions, linguistically speaking. That’s why we call them red onions and red grapes when they’re purple and most “red” birds are actually orange.
The word ultimately derives from a Dravidian language – possibly Tamil நாரம் nāram or Telugu నారింజ nāriṃja or Malayalam നാരങ്ങ nāraŋŋa — via Sanskrit नारङ्ग nāraṅgaḥ “orange tree”. From there the word entered Persian نارنگ nārang and then Arabic نارنج nāranj. The initial n was lost through rebracketing in Italian and French, though some varieties of Arabic lost the n earlier.
The word “orange” entered Middle English from Old French and Anglo-Norman orenge. The earliest recorded use of the word in English is from the 13th century and referred to the fruit.
Fun fact: the color orange was named after the fruit, and not the fruit named for the color.
What was the color called before that?
Basically red. The names for orange and purple are pretty recent inventions, linguistically speaking. That’s why we call them red onions and red grapes when they’re purple and most “red” birds are actually orange.
The color was called yellowred before oranges were discovered.
And they spelled it: Geoluread
It was kept in Spanish tho, naranja.
Same in Hungarian, narancs.
In my mother tongue, also a Dravidian language, narangayi means lemon. Orange is actually called chitt-puli.