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From: henry@netcom.com (Henry Polard)
Subject: Re: etymology of avocado
Message-ID: <henryDnpzx7.In@netcom.com>
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References: <AD568C9E9668FE255@entergrp.demon.co.uk> <4gsb09$r5j@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk> <4gsna4$oi5@clarknet.clark.net> <4ha84n$770@bone.think.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 01:53:31 GMT
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Sender: henry@netcom2.netcom.com

In article <4ha84n$770@bone.think.com>, Daan Sandee <sandee@think.com> wrote:
>In article <4gsna4$oi5@clarknet.clark.net> gusty@clark.net (Harlan Messinger) writes:
>>Now, on to the supposition: 

Now on to facts (more or less :-) ) :

Thus is it written in the American Heritage Dictionary:

American Spanish alteration (influenced by Spanish avocado)
(earlier form of abogado lawyer) of Nahuatl ahuacatl.

The history of avocado takes us back to the Nahuatl (the language
of the Aztecs) word ahuacatl, fruit of the avocado tree or
testicle. The word ahuacatl was compounded with others, as
in ahuacamolli, meaning avocado soup or sauce, from which
the Spanish-Mexican word guacamole derives. In trying to pronounce
ahuacatl, the Spanish who found the fruit and its Nahuatl name in
Mexico came up with aguacate, but other Spanish speakers
substituted the form avocado for the Nahuatl word because ahuacatl
sounded like the early Spanish word avocado (now abogado), meaning
lawyer. In borrowing the Spanish avocado, first recorded in
English in 1697 in the compound avogato pear (with a spelling that
probably reflects Spanish pronunciation), we have lost many of the
traces of the more interesting Nahuatl word.


Henry Polard || My dictionary puts the cart before the horse.
