avocado [M17th] The name of the avocado in the Aztec language Nahuatl was ahuacatl, also the word for ‘testicle’ and applied to the fruit because of its shape. In the 16th century the Spanish conquerors of Central America adopted this word but converted it into the form aguacate and then to the more familiar-sounding avocado, the Spanish word for ‘a lawyer’ (and related to the English advocate [ME] from Latin advocare ‘to call to one’s aid’).