What's extra interesting is that the fruit used to be called a norange. But the phrase "A norange" shifted into "An orange".
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'orange' comes from old french 'pome orenge', a literal translation of old italian 'melarancio', derived from 'mela' (apple) + 'arancia' (orange colour). 'arancia' is then further derived from the arabic word for orange (fruit) <نَارَنْج> 'nāranj', derived from sanskrit <नारङ्ग> 'nāraṅga' which meant 'orange tree', from some old version of tamil which today is <நார்த்தங்காய் > 'nārttaṅkāy', a combination of <நரந்தம்> 'narantam' (fragrance) and <காய்> 'kāy' (fruit).
essentially orange is indian for 'nice smelling fruit'. not from the combination of 'a norange'. sound changes just don't work like that; if that did happen, we would still be saying 'the norange', and any other word starting with <n> would combine with the vowel, forming for example 'an igger' or 'an ail'
nor was it ever spelled 'norange' in older forms of english. it was always either orange or orenge.
edit: on the subject of the topic,
meat, muscle (slang), essence (slang): uncountable
bovine animals themselves can also be called 'beef', though in this meaning the noun used to be countable, 'beeves' is an archaic word that refers to a bunch of cows or other bovines. it is no longer a word.
the slang term using beef meaning 'grudge', has a plural, 'beefs'.
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