I can assure you that the origin and true meaning of this fruit that we so often eat, is going to amaze you. And yes, the avocado is a fruit, because it comes from the part of the plant that contains seeds and it also, it comes from the tree called Persea Americana.
It is said that the avocado is originally from Mexico. The first discovery was in a cave in Coacxlatán, Puebla. Originally, for the Nahuatl (Aztecs), what we call today “avocado” was called āhuacatl. With time and colonizations, the avocado was introduced to Spain and other American countries.
During the colonization times, it was said that the original name was corrupted and for that, it was known in several different ways. At some point, it was even called “crocodile pear” because of the texture of its shell. Thereupon, it was denominated as “avocado pear” because of the pear-like shape it possesses.
After all the different names that it was given over time, eventually it came to be the word “aguacate” in Spanish, initially “avocato” in English, and then it settled to “avocado”.
Nonetheless, the most curious detail of all is that even though this is a fruit that we eat on a day to day basis and it has been moved throughout hundreds of countries and has been present since thousands of years, the true meaning of the word avocado remains unknown by many: it means testicle. It is widely believed that that name was chosen because of the shape of the avocado and the aphrodisiac characteristics that the Aztecs attributed to it.
What an interesting fact, don't you think? Having gone through life without knowing the real meaning of something you eat so often!