The large seed found inside an avocado is called the pit. Botanically, it is a single seed enclosed within the avocado’s fleshy fruit, which is classified as a berry rather than a drupe.
The pit sits at the center of the fruit and is protected by the surrounding creamy flesh. Its size varies among avocado varieties, but cultivated avocados generally have much larger seeds than their wild ancestors because humans selected for fleshier fruit over thousands of years.
Avocado pits are sometimes mistaken for nuts because they are hard and rounded, but they are not nuts. “Kernel” can describe the edible inner part of some seeds, yet “pit” is the conventional culinary term for an avocado’s central seed. Pits can germinate in soil or water, although a seed-grown tree may take years to produce fruit and may not reproduce the parent avocado’s qualities.