Vol. 09 · Loanwords ·Indigenous languages ·1690s
Avocado
from āhuacatl
- Meaning
- The Nahuatl word for the fruit; it also meant "testicle," a visual joke.
- Source word
- āhuacatl
- Route into English
- Nahuatl → Spanish *aguacate* → English via the Spanish West Indian trade. "Alligator pear" was a 19th-century folk-etymological mishearing still heard in the American South.
- Arrived
- 1690s
From Indigenous languages
A loose group: Nahuatl, Taino, Algonquian, Guugu Yimithirr, and others. Colonial contact produced many loans; the speakers were often systematically dispossessed of the land the loanwords described.
English borrows.
Browse the full loanword atlas or explore another source language.