spade

¹ American  

[speyd] / 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.

---

verb (used with object)

spaded, spading

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  

[speyd] / 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.

---

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

---

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

---

spade More Idioms  

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

---

Other Word Forms

• spadelike adjective
• spader noun
• unspaded adjective

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; spade ¹

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

When his successor Lyndon Johnson broke ground on the center in 1964, he did so with the same spade that had been used for the Lincoln Memorial in 1914 and the Jefferson Memorial in 1938.

From Salon • Jan. 1, 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

While there, Saavedra admitted in his plea agreement, he got a tattoo on his left ankle of the “unofficial logo” of the Lakewood station: a spade with the number 13 inside of it.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 18, 2025

One day he came straight from working in the fields, threw down the spade he was carrying and announced he was finished with the land.

From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya

Related Words

• shovel