Avocado is a Spanish mangling of an Aztec word, and the mangling is the interesting part. Nahuatl had ahuakatl for the fruit; Spanish speakers reshaped it first as aguacate, then as avocado — which was already a Spanish word meaning "lawyer," from the same Latin source as English advocate. The fruit had nothing to do with lawyers. The name simply drifted toward a word people already knew, which is what folk etymology does when a foreign word offers no handhold.
English took the Spanish form in 1763. In the same year English produced a folk etymology of its own, turning Mexican Spanish alvacata into alligator pear — a name that stuck for two centuries and makes even less sense than the lawyer. The word is a good example of how borrowings from the Americas reach English: through Spanish, reshaped at least once on the way, and frequently reshaped again on arrival.
avocado (n.) edible, oily fruit of a tree common in the American tropics, 1763, from Spanish avocado , altered (by folk etymology influence of earlier Spanish avocado "lawyer," from same Latin source as advocate (n.)) from earlier aguacate , from Nahuatl (Aztecan) ahuakatl "avocado" (with a secondary meaning "testicle" probably based on resemblance), from proto-Nahuan *pawa "avocado." As a color-name, it is attested by 1945. The English corruption alligator (pear) is 1763, from Mexican Spanish alvacata , alligato . also from 1763
avocado came in through Later and wider borrowings, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
What gives it away on the page
| -tl reshaped into -te | Nahuatl, through Spanish.chocolate, tomato, avocado, coyote, chili |
Later and wider borrowings in the spelling guide · guess another word's family