Spade
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 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
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"He is the type of a person who calls a spade a spade."
Etymology
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.