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Spade
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 1 A garden tool with a handle and a flat blade for digging. Not to be confused with a shovel which is used for moving earth or other materials.
"'Make your mind easy,' Ratsey said; 'I have dug too often in this graveyard for any to wonder if they see me with a spade.'"
- 2 A playing card marked with the symbol ♠.
"I've got only one spade in my hand."
- 3 a sturdy hand shovel that can be pushed into the earth with the foot wordnet
- 4 A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.
- 5 A black person. ethnic, offensive, slur
"And as for a divorce, I know plenty spades right here in Harlem get married any time they want to."
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- 6 a playing card in the major suit that has one or more black figures on it wordnet
- 7 A device for terminating an electrical conductor resembling a small spade.
- 1 To turn over soil with a spade to loosen the ground for planting.
- 2 simple past and past participle of spay form-of, obsolete, participle, past
- 3 dig (up) with a spade wordnet
Etymology
From Middle English spade, from Old English spada, spade, spadu (“spade”), from Proto-Germanic *spadô. Doublet of spatha, spathe, and épée.
From Middle English spade, from Old English spada, spade, spadu (“spade”), from Proto-Germanic *spadô. Doublet of spatha, spathe, and épée.
Probably from Italian spade, plural of spada (“the ace of spades”, literally “sword, spade”), from earlier *spata, from Latin spatha, from Ancient Greek σπᾰ́θη (spắthē). Cognate with Etymology 1. So called for the shape, though what the shape was exactly meant to represent has been debated.
See also for "spade"
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