Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Avocado |
AvocadoAdjective1. Of the dull yellowish green of the meat of an avocado. Noun1. Pear-shaped tropical fruit with green or blackish skin and rich yellowish pulp enclosing a single large seed. 2. Tropical American tree bearing large pulpy green fruits. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definition |
Food & Agriculture | The pulpy green or purple somewhat pear-shaped edible fruit of various tropical american trees of the genus persea. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Avocado Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Laurales Family: Lauraceae Genus: Persea Species: americana Binomial name Persea americana The avocado is a tree and the fruit of that tree, Persea americana, in the flowering plant Family Lauraceae. The avocado tree does not tolerate freezing temperatures, and so can be grown only in subtropical and tropical climates, where the fruit is sometimes called a pear or alligator pear.
Avocado fruit is a berry. Horticultural varieties range from more or less round to egg or pear-shaped, typically the size of a temperate zone pear or larger, on the outside bright green to green-brown (or almost black) in color, and high in fat, with a large central seed or pit. The flesh is typically greenish yellow to golden yellow, if ripe turning dark soon after exposure to air. The avocado is very popular in vegetarian cuisine, making a good substitute for meats and cheeses in sandwiches because of the high fat content. The fruit is not sweet, but starchy, flavorful, and of smooth, almost creamy texture. It is used as the base for the Mexican sauce known as guacamole.
The name"avocado" is from its Nahuatl name 'ahuacatl' which also meant testicles, with influence from the irrelevant but much more familiar Spanish avocado an obsolete form of 'abogado' (lawyer). The Nahuatl ahuacatl could be compounded with others, as in ahuacamolli, meaning “avocado soup or sauce,” from which the Spanish-Mexican word guacamole derives.
The avocado fruit does not ripen on the tree, but will fall off in a hard, "green" state, then ripen quickly on the ground. Generally, the fruit is picked once it reaches a mature size, and will then ripen in a few days — faster if stored with other fruit such as bananas. Up to a point, fruit can be left on the tree until required, rather than picked and stored.
Barlow & Martin (2002) identify the avocado as a fruit adapted for ecological relationship with large mammals, now extinct (as for example the South American herbivorous giant ground sloths or Gomphotheres). This fruit with its mildly toxic pit, co-evolved with those extinct mammals to be swallowed whole and excreted in dung, ready to sprout. The ecological partners have disappeared, and the avocado plant has not had time to evolve an alternative seed dispersal technique.
References
- Barlow, Connie and Paul Martin. (2002) The Ghosts of Evolution: nonsensical fruit, missing partners and other ecological anachronisms.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Avocado."
Synonyms: AvocadoSynonyms: alligator pear (n), avocado pear (n), avocado tree (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Food | Alligator pear, apple; apple slump; artichoke; ashcake, griddlecake, pancake, flapjack; atole, avocado, banana, beche de mer, barbecue, beefsteak; beet root; blackberry, blancmange, bloater, bouilli, bouillon, breadfruit, chop suey; chowder, chupatty, clam, compote, damper, fish, frumenty, grapes, hasty pudding, ice cream, lettuce, mango, mangosteen, mince pie, oatmeal, oyster, pineapple, porridge, porterhouse steak, salmis, sauerkraut, sea slug, sturgeon ("Albany beef"), succotash, supawn, trepang, vanilla, waffle, walnut. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Avocado |
| English words defined with "avocado": alligator pear, Avigato ♦ genus Persea ♦ Persea ♦ season. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Avocado" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. German (avocado), Italian (avocado), Swedish (alligator pear). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | At least you're tall enough to carry it. Married life's making me feel like an avocado with feet (The Onion Field; writing credit: Joseph Wambaugh) He's eating avocado vinigrette and prawns (The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover; writing credit: Peter Greenaway) | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | A display of high fat foods. Such as pastries, lunch meat, crackers, olives, avocado, peanut butter, and coconut on a table. Credit: Unknown photographer/artist. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Avocado" by Bobbie Osborne Commentary: "Upload Date: 2003-05-10." | "Tomato, Avocado" by Erika Thorpe Commentary: "Abstract macro shot of tomato and avocado." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| "Avocado" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.29% of the time. "Avocado" is used about 85 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.29% | 81 | 36,835 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.71% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Total | 100.00% | 85 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "avocado": avocado Heights ♦ avocado pear ♦ avocado plantation ♦ avocado tree. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "avocado": avocado-coloured, avocado-green, avocado-lime. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
avocado | 776 | avocado extract | 18 |
avocado tree | 194 | avocado picture | 17 |
agriculture avocado | 194 | avocado nutritional information | 17 |
growing avocado | 95 | avocado festival | 16 |
avocado recipe | 90 | california avocado | 15 |
avocado company list | 76 | avocado grow tree | 15 |
avocado plant | 61 | avocado planting | 13 |
avocado importer | 59 | avocado calorie in | 13 |
avocado oil | 52 | avocado fat | 13 |
avocado nutrition | 48 | ripen avocado | 13 |
calorie of avocado | 44 | avocado cholesterol | 12 |
grow avocado | 43 | avocado carbohydrate | 12 |
avocado dip | 40 | avocado fact nutrition | 12 |
avocado seed | 32 | avocado extract sugar | 12 |
growing avocado tree | 25 | avocado fact nutritional | 11 |
avocado salad | 24 | avocado growing seed | 11 |
avocado nutritional value | 21 | avocado care tree | 11 |
avocado seller | 20 | hass avocado | 10 |
avocado buyer wholesale | 20 | avocado fruit | 10 |
avocado soup | 19 | avocado dressing | 10 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "avocado"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | avokado. (various references) | |
Arabic | الأفوكاتة شجرة المحامي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | авокадо (alligator pear). (various references) | |
Chamorro | alagatapeha'. (various references) | |
Chinese | 鲕梨. (various references) | |
Czech | avokádo. (various references) | |
Danish | avocado (alligator pear, avocado pear). (various references) | |
Dutch | awacati (alligator pear), avocado's (alligator pear, avocado pear), avocado (alligator pear, avocado pear), alligatorpeer (alligator pear, avocado pear), advokaat (advocate, alligator pear, avocado pear, barrister solicitor), advocaatboom (alligator pear), advocaat (advocate, barrister, counsel, egg nog, intercessor, lawyer, solicitor). (various references) | |
Ecuadorian Quechua | palta (avocado tree). (various references) | |
Farsi | نوعی میوه شبیه انبه یاگلابی بزرگ , اوکادو. (various references) | |
Finnish | avokado (alligator pear, avocado pear). (various references) | |
French | avocat (avocado pear). (various references) | |
German | avocado (alligator pear). (various references) | |
Greek | αβοκάντο (alligator pear, avocado pear). (various references) | |
Hebrew | אבוקדו. (various references) | |
Hungarian | avokádó-körte, avokádó-fa, avokádó, agáta-fa. (various references) | |
Indonesian | apokat. (various references) | |
Italian | avocado (alligator pear, avocado pear). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | アヘン中毒 (abort, aperitif, append, appetizer, availability, Ave Maria, avenue, average, average golfer, axolotl, back-to-back homeruns, edible salamander, Hail Mary, Mexican walking fish, neotonous salamander, opium poisoning, together, with someone). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | アボカド . (various references) | |
Maya | oom. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | avocadoay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | abacate (alligator pear). (various references) | |
Russian | авокадо (avocadoes, avocados). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | avokado. (various references) | |
Spanish | aguacate (alligator pear, avocado pear). (various references) | |
Swazi | lí-kotapéni (avocado pear). (various references) | |
Swedish | avokado (alligator pear). (various references) | |
Turkish | avokado. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | авокадо, алігаторова груша, плід авокадо. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Persea, Persea americana, Persea gratissima. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "avocado": avocadoes, avocados. (additional references) | |
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"Avocado" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Advogadro, avacado, Aviaco, avocano, avocato, avvocato, azopardo. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "avocado" (pronounced a'vukÄ"dō) |
| 5 | -u k Ä" d ō | incommunicado. |
| 4 | -k Ä" d ō | mikado. |
| 3 | -Ä" d ō | bravado, Colorado, cruzado, desperado, Dorado, tostado. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-d-o-o-v" | |
-3 letters: coda. | |
-4 letters: ado, ava, avo, cad, cod, coo, doc, oca, ova, vac. | |
-5 letters: aa, ad, do, od. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-d-o-o-v" | |
+1 letter: avocados. | |
+2 letters: advocator, avocadoes. | |
+3 letters: advocation, advocators. | |
+4 letters: advocations. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
