spade

¹ American  

[spayd] / speɪd /

noun

1. a tool for digging, having an iron blade adapted for pressing into the ground with the foot and a long handle commonly with a grip or crosspiece at the top, and with the blade usually narrower and flatter than that of a shovel.

2. some implement, piece, or part resembling this.

3. a sharp projection on the bottom of a gun trail, designed to dig into the earth to restrict backward movement of the carriage during recoil.

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verb (used with object)

• spades,
  present (3rd person singular)
• spaded,
  past participle,  past
• spading
  present participle

1. to dig, cut, or remove with a spade (sometimes followed byup ).

   Let's spade up the garden and plant some flowers.

idioms

1. call a spade a spade, to call something by its real name; be candidly explicit; speak plainly or bluntly.

   To call a spade a spade, he's a crook.

2. in spades,

   1. in the extreme; positively.

      He's a hypocrite, in spades.

   2. without restraint; outspokenly.

      I told him what I thought, in spades.

spade ² American  

[spayd] / speɪd /

noun

1. a black figure shaped like an inverted heart and with a short stem at the cusp opposite the point, used on playing cards.

2. a card of the suit bearing such figures.

3. spades,

   1. (used with a singular or plural verb) the suit so marked: Spades count double.

      Spades is trump.

      Spades count double.

   2. (used with a plural verb) the winning of seven spades or more.

4. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used to refer to a Black person.

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spade ¹ British  

/ speɪd /

noun

1. a tool for digging, typically consisting of a flat rectangular steel blade attached to a long wooden handle

2. 1. an object or part resembling a spade in shape

   2. ( as modifier )

      a spade beard

3. a heavy metallic projection attached to the trail of a gun carriage that embeds itself into the ground and so reduces recoil

4. a type of oar blade that is comparatively broad and short Compare spoon

5. a cutting tool for stripping the blubber from a whale or skin from a carcass

6. to speak plainly and frankly

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verb

1. (tr) to use a spade on

spade ² British  

/ speɪd /

noun

1. 1. the black symbol on a playing card resembling a heart-shaped leaf with a stem

   2. a card with one or more of these symbols or ( when pl ) the suit of cards so marked, usually the highest ranking of the four

2. a derogatory word for Black

3. informal in an extreme or emphatic way

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spade More Idioms  

1. see call a spade a spade; do the spadework; in spades.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• spader
  noun
• spadelike
  adjective
• unspaded
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• spading
  present
• spaded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• spade
  simple
• spades
  simple
• have spaded
  perfect
• has spaded
  perfect
• am spading
  progressive
• are spading
  progressive
• is spading
  progressive
• have been spading
  perfect progressive
• has been spading
  perfect progressive

Past

• spaded
  simple
• had spaded
  perfect
• was spading
  progressive
• were spading
  progressive
• had been spading
  perfect progressive

Future

• will spade
  simple
• will have spaded
  perfect
• will be spading
  progressive
• will have been spading
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of spade¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English, Old English spadu, spada; cognate with Dutch spade, German Spaten, Old Norse spathi “spade”; akin to Greek spáthē “blade (of a sword, oar), spatula”; perhaps akin to Sanskrit sphyá- “shoulder blade, scapula”

Origin of spade²

First recorded in 1590–1600; from Italian, plural of spada originally, “sword,” from Latin spatha, from Greek spáthē; see origin at spade ¹

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Explanation

If you're a gardener, you know that a spade is a small shovel with a short handle. A spade is perfect for planting bulbs and digging up weeds. In addition to a small digging tool, a spade is also a suit of playing card — the black one that looks a bit like an upside-down heart. There's even a card game called "Spades" in which a spade has a higher value than any other suit. The two meanings have different roots; the card suit spade comes from the Greek spathe, and the little shovel kind of spade has Proto-Germanic roots that mean "flat piece of wood."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

spade spades spaded spading

They had been playing with a bucket and spade.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

The Trump Administration can rely on intellectual spade work from Sen. Roger Wicker, and many of the ideas we’ve discussed here are in the next defense authorization bill.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 16, 2025

The investment firm thinks Tesla will manage through its Musk-related branding problems and its stock will rebound, but it calls a spade a spade.

From Slate ● Mar. 4, 2025

Two years ago, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department internal investigators learned about a group of Lakewood station deputies who shared a common tattoo of a spade, with the number 13.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 18, 2025

Ishmael wore rubber boots and clutched a gardener’s hand spade; the sun struck his shoulders and back as he walked and dried the mud on his knees and hands.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson

Morris and his assistants have invested time in teaching players to play dominoes and spades.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

The most electable progressives are instead happy warriors, a quality Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have in spades.

From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2026

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon celebrated the signing in April of the free trade deal with the world's most populous nation, touting an export boom that would deliver jobs and investment in spades.

From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was determined to get "spades in the ground" for the third runway, and for it to be built by 2035.

From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026

Our spades, the big shovel, the hoe, and a crate to put the weeds in.

From "The Season of Styx Malone" by Kekla Magoon

They spaded dirt over the plot, said a prayer and drove away.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 18, 2021

As the years went by, she never plowed, spaded or even made a compost pile.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 7, 2017

I struggled to avoid being spaded by the spinning Dunlops and to unhook my boot.

From Time Magazine Archive

In four years he has spaded up material that many a folklorist would give his magnetized recorder heads to own.

From Time Magazine Archive

With my drawn blade I spaded up the votive pit, and poured libations round it to the unnumbered dead: sweet milk and honey, then sweet wine, and last clear water; and I scattered barley down.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

President John Quincy Adams broke ground on the 185-mile Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in 1828, spading the first shovel of dirt just across the District line.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 23, 2017

Part of the special delight of “Ghostland” is its many informed asides, revealing Dickey’s long hours of spading up obscure facts and quotes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2016

Other settlers heard of it and began spading up crocks of wheat, kitchen utensils and tins of gasoline.

From Time Magazine Archive

Kennedy's out-of-state legwork made many a Democrat indebted; Kennedy's backyard spading produced a record-breaking, 870,000-vote plurality for him and high-lift coattails for other Massachusetts Democrats.

From Time Magazine Archive

Cobras love to swim, and I’d seen them often enough arrowing through water hyacinth, their wide flat heads spading up out of the water.

From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer

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Related Words

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