According to Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com) citrus name appeared before denotation of colour of the same name. The article "orange" says: "Not used as the name of a color until 1542". But it's interesting how did people call orange colour before? Not mandarin or tangerine for sure.

Once upon a time, a group of people discovered the orange fruit and found it look like gold ("or") and taste like "angel," so they called it "orangel." Before that, the color "orange" was but "red-yellow." However, as people were always lazy, and as time went by, they were reluctant to write or pronounce the word correctly. Gradually, the "l" in "orangel" was dropped and what's left was "orange." So yes, the fruit before the color. Just kidding, I made up everything except the "red-yellow" part and the sequence of things. Orange (aka, China's apple) was indeed a name for fruit (derived from Sanskrit and had gone through a series of changes in a series of languages) before it became a name for color.

I believe (even if I'm not a phantom) the Orange came first :D, i have some proofs of course : 1) Orange begins with O which is pretty much like an Orange 2) In Orange we have range witch is an abbreviation of ranch where we can find Orange 3) The previous arguments :P very smart I know , thanx from the advance :D

of couse is color~cus color is some type of physics,which is permanent ,even its name was not orange ,It doesn't mean it doesn't exit....

The fruit came first... then it was used to describe the colour, so we could make a rhyme. ;)