Spad

//ˈspæd// noun, phrase, verb, slang

noun, phrase, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A government adviser, often in a political or media role. UK, informal

    "SPAD Special Advisor"

  2. 2
    A nail one or two inches long, of iron, brass, tin, or tinner iron, with a hole through the flattened head, used to mark stations in underground surveying.
  3. 3
    Clipping of spadona/spadone. abbreviation, alt-of, clipping

    "No. 6.—Spadonas or spads, the first wing-quills of the chick, clipped at about six months."

  4. 4
    An instance of a signal passed at danger. UK
  5. 5
    Alternative letter-case form of spad (“special adviser”). UK, alt-of, informal
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    Alternative form of spad (“special advisor in government”). UK, alt-of, alternative, informal
  2. 7
    A relative measurement of the amount of chlorophyll present in a leaf, based on measurements with a SPAD meter produced by Minolta.
  3. 8
    Initialism of self-propelled air defense; a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
Verb
  1. 1
    To pass a signal at danger. UK
Phrase
  1. 1
    Initialism of signal passed at danger. UK, abbreviation, alt-of, initialism

Synonyms

All synonyms
spadona

Example

More examples

"A successful stint as a spad can be a crucial political apprenticeship - as many of the current crop of professional politicians including the Miliband brothers, David Cameron and George Osborne can testify - so long as they stay in the dark."

Etymology

Shortening of special adviser.

Related phrases

danger signal

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.