Why we call a brown bird with an orange belly Robin Redbreasts

European Robin

The American Robin was named by early British colonists after the European Robin they left behind. The two are only related distantly, but both have orange/red breasts.

In the fifteenth century, when it became popular to give human names to familiar species, the bird came to be known as Robin Redbreast. Orange as a color was unknown in English until the sixteenth century, when the fruit called an Orange was introduced.

Before the English-speaking world was exposed to the fruit, the color was referred to as "yellow-red" (geoluhread in Old English). Orange as a color was used descriptively in the sixteenth century (as in orange-coloured), but was not established as a basic color word until well into the twentieth century.

American Robin

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_%28word%29

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