• It's Maddie!@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    The word avocado comes from the Spanish aguacate, which derives from the Nahuatl (Mexican) word āhuacatl, which goes back to the proto-Aztecan *pa:wa. In Molina’s Nahuatl dictionary “auacatl” is given also as the translation for compañón “testicle”, and this has been taken up in popular culture where a frequent claim is that testicle was the word’s original meaning. This is not the case, as the original meaning can be reconstructed rather as “avocado” – rather the word seems to have been used in Nahuatl as a euphemism for “testicle”.

    Source: Wikipedia

    • insomniac_lemon@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      That’s a bit of a word salad, but I assume it’s just saying that it’s a coincidental euphemism. Like if a non-English speaker said “Did you know? The English term melon baller literally translates to breast testicler”. It’s not like it’s a high bar.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      So just like the use of the word “nuts” to refer to testicles.