from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun A tropical American tree (Persea americana) having oval or pear-shaped fruit with leathery skin, yellowish-green flesh, and a large seed.
noun The edible fruit of this tree.
noun A dull green.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun The alligator-pear, the fruit of Persea gratissima, natural order Lauraceœ, a tree common in tropical America and the West Indies.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun The pulpy fruit of Persea gratissima, a tree of tropical America. It is about the size and shape of a large pear; -- called also avocado pear, alligator pear, midshipman's butter.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun The large, usually yellowish-green or black, pulpy fruit of the avocado tree.
noun The avocado tree.
noun A dull yellowish-greencolour, the colour of the meat of an avocado.
adjective Of a dull yellowish-green colour.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
adjective of the dull yellowish green of the meat of an avocado
noun tropical American tree bearing large pulpy green fruits
noun a pear-shaped tropical fruit with green or blackish skin and rich yellowish pulp enclosing a single large seed
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Alteration (perhaps influenced in form by obsolete Spanish avocado, lawyer) of Early Modern English avogato, avocato, from American Spanish aguacate, from Nahuatl āhuacatl, avocado, testicle.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Spanish aguacate, from Nahuatl ahuacatl. Influenced by confusion with Spanish abogado ("lawyer").
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Examples
The word avocado comes from "aguacate" in Spanish, which in turn comes from the Nahuatl Mexican native language "ahuacatl", referring to a certain intimate part of the male anatomy.
Kitchen appliances began to be mass produced in avocado and gold instead of white, colors and fabrics in clothing were ordained by the designers, and heaven help you if you did not look well in citron the year it was the “in” color.
"Having been previously raised by wolves, I'm now learning the little things that only those who are loved get to learn, like how to smile in a photograph and the most efficient way to peel an avocado."
Spanish tried to borrow the Nahuatl word for this fruit, ahuacatl "tree testicle", but found it difficult to pronounce. The Nahuatl word was first changed to aguacate, a word seemingly containing agua "water", but later this word was replaced by avocado "lawyer" (abogado today), a word sharing an origin with English advocate.
pterodactyl commented on the word avocado
See comments at aphrodisiac.
May 7, 2008
bilby commented on the word avocado
"Having been previously raised by wolves, I'm now learning the little things that only those who are loved get to learn, like how to smile in a photograph and the most efficient way to peel an avocado."
- user NoAffectation, webook.com, 24 Nov 2008.
November 26, 2008
ezola commented on the word avocado
Avocado in French is avocat, which also means attorney.
December 31, 2008
fbharjo commented on the word avocado
perhaps related to bocado spanish for delicacy
February 4, 2009
madmouth commented on the word avocado
from Nahuatl "ahuacatl"--testicle.
also, ezola--this website says that the Spanish heard 'ahuacatl' as a word they had already, that is 'avocado' (lawyer). the French is no coincidence.
April 28, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word avocado
Spanish tried to borrow the Nahuatl word for this fruit, ahuacatl "tree testicle", but found it difficult to pronounce. The Nahuatl word was first changed to aguacate, a word seemingly containing agua "water", but later this word was replaced by avocado "lawyer" (abogado today), a word sharing an origin with English advocate.
October 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word avocado
In Peru, the word is completely different -- palta.
October 2, 2010
yarb commented on the word avocado
palta is the word in most of South and Central America in my experience.
October 2, 2010
yarb commented on the word avocado
However I'm not sure whether palta refers to the fruit or just to its flesh, the part that you eat.
October 2, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word avocado
I experienced it as referring to both.
October 2, 2010
chained_bear commented on the word avocado
Historical note on William Dampier.
December 28, 2016