Plural of “avocado”

The plural of avocado is avocados.

Why

"Avocado" comes from Spanish, an alteration of Nahuatl "ahuacatl," the Aztec word for the fruit, reshaped by Spanish speakers to resemble their own word "abogado" (lawyer) purely by sound association. English borrowed the reshaped Spanish form in the 17th century, and despite ending in a consonant-plus-o pattern similar to "tomato" and "potato," it settled on a plain -s plural rather than the older -oes ending. Early English travelers and colonists in Central America and the Caribbean encountered the fruit long before it became a familiar grocery-store item, and for centuries it remained a curiosity described mainly in travel writing rather than a household word.

This is a genuine exception within the older-borrowing group: "tomato" and "potato" both take -oes, but "avocado," despite arriving in English around a similar era, never picked up that ending, possibly because the word remained a relatively rare, exotic food term in English for a very long time and only became a truly everyday word much more recently, by which point the -oes pattern was no longer being actively applied to newly common vocabulary.

Usage note

From produce-aisle signage to recipe cards to agricultural trade reports, "avocados" is simply the plural you'll find everywhere today — no competing form survives in any register.

The accidental resemblance between Nahuatl "ahuacatl" and Spanish "abogado" is a textbook case of folk etymology reshaping a loanword's spelling to match a more familiar existing word in the borrowing language, even though the two words share no actual historical connection beyond the coincidental similarity in sound. Global demand for avocados has surged dramatically since the early 2000s, driven partly by health-food trends and the popularity of avocado toast, a shift significant enough that agricultural economists now track "avocado" production and export figures as a distinct, closely watched commodity category in international trade reporting. California and Mexico remain the two largest producers supplying the word's modern everyday context, and agricultural writing about avocado imports and exports has grown substantially as global demand for the fruit has increased.

Common real mistakes

Because "avocado" looks so similar to "tomato" and "potato," writers occasionally guess "avocadoes" by analogy — a reasonable but incorrect guess, since dictionaries and everyday usage both firmly favor "avocados." A separate, botanical point of confusion is that the avocado is technically a large single-seeded berry, not a vegetable, though this is a scientific classification issue rather than a grammar one.

The wider pattern

"Avocado" is a useful reminder that the -oes-versus-os split doesn't divide cleanly along lines of age or origin alone — it also depends heavily on how recently and how commonly a word became part of everyday vocabulary, which is why "avocado" ended up with "tomato" and "potato"'s general shape but "piano" and "photo"'s plural pattern instead.

Examples

• The recipe calls for two ripe avocados.
• Grocery stores sell avocados year-round now thanks to global shipping.
• She grows several avocados on the tree in her backyard.
• Prices for avocados spiked during the shortage.
• The salad was topped with sliced avocados and lime.
• Farmers exported tons of avocados to overseas markets.
• He mashed three avocados for the guacamole.
• Avocados ripen faster when stored next to bananas.
• The orchard produces thousands of avocados each season.
• Imported avocados filled the produce aisle by early spring.
• The market stocked both hard and ripe avocados side by side.
• Chefs prize avocados for their creamy texture in sauces.
• The chef paired grilled avocados with citrus dressing.
• Local growers sold avocados directly at the farm stand.
• The smoothie recipe blends avocados with spinach and banana.
• She sliced the avocados thin for the toast.
• The nursery sold young avocado trees for home gardens.
• She swapped mayonnaise for mashed avocados in the recipe.
• The stand sold ripe avocados at a discount by evening.