lavocat

Lavocat is not a distinct word in standard French; the form most commonly encountered is l'avocat, the elided version used before a vowel. In contemporary usage, this sequence can denote two different meanings: the lawyer (a legal professional) and the avocado (the fruit). The meanings are unrelated in origin, but they share identical spelling in the elided form.

The lawyer sense derives from Latin advocatus, through Old and Medieval French, reflecting the profession and its historical terminology. The fruit sense comes from the French adaptation of the Spanish aguacate, which itself traces to the Nahuatl word for the fruit. Thus, the two meanings converge in modern spelling rather than in a common etymology.

In practice, context clarifies which meaning is intended. Examples include L'avocat conseille ses clients (the lawyer) and L'avocat est mûr (the avocado). In standard French, there is no separate single-word variant for the term; lavocat without apostrophe is generally considered incorrect in ordinary writing, though it may appear in surnames, brand names, or typographic styles.

Notes on usage: if precision is needed, adding qualifiers such as "l'avocat professionnel" or "l'avocat et le droit" for the legal sense, or "l'avocat, le fruit" for the culinary sense, helps prevent ambiguity.

See also: Avocat (the word in French with its two primary senses), French language, Avocado.