Translate orange from English to French (2024)

FAQs

What is orange called in French? ›

The French translation for “the orange” is l'orange. The French, l'orange, can be broken down into 2 parts:"the (feminine, before a vowel sound)" (l') and "orange" (orange).

Exception: “Orange” is only masculine as a color – as a fruit it's feminine. Same thing for “rose.” As a color, it's masculine, but as a flower, it's feminine. Exception: Most shrubs are also masculine, but vines are feminine (la vigne). Exception: la tomme de Savoie is a cheese exception.

Orange the fruit came first. The word came into English either from Old French 'pomme d'orenge', or from the Spanish 'naranja' (with the subsequent transfer of the 'n' over to the indefinite article, as per 'apron' and 'adder', originally 'napron' and 'nadder').

An apple a day...

In France, this fruit has more than one trick up its sleeve. French people eat more apples than any other fruit, and for good reason.

Take orange for example. As in English, in French orange refers to both the color and the fruit (une orange). Though you can certainly have de multiples oranges (multiple oranges), the adjective form of the word never changes, even in the plural: J'ai acheté des chaussures orange.

In Spanish, if you are referencing the word “orange,” the word you would choose would depend on whether you are talking about the color or the fruit. If you are talking about the color, you would use “anaranjado.” If you are referring to the fruit, you would use “naranja.”

Adjectives of colours in French. Note that colours ending in mute -e, such as jaune (yellow), rose (pink), rouge (red) and orange remain the same in the feminine.

What do French people call apples? ›

Because “pomme” is based on another word used in the Roman and more precisely gallo-roman world, “poma” - which is the neutral plural for “pomum”, and “pomum” means fruit in general. As the apple is the fruit par excellence, the French language has taken that word instead of the more precise “malum”.

pomme [ feminine ] (Translation of apple from the GLOBAL English-French Dictionary © 2016 K Dictionaries Ltd)

They are bleu (blue), rouge (red), vert (green), jaune (yellow), blanc (white), noir (black), gris (gray), rose (pink), violet (purple), marron (brown) and orange (orange.) But colors aren't just a practical way to describe things.

à l'orange in American English

(ˌɑː lɔˈrɑːnʒ, French a lɔˈʀɑ̃ːʒ) adjective. French Cookery. prepared or served with slices of orange, orange peel, or an orange-flavored sauce. duck à l'orange.