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.

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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  

[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.

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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

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

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

Kamara - who scored a stunning winner against Wolves last month - is viewed as almost unique, someone who can do the unglamourous spade work without the ball, at a subtle but high technical level.

From BBC ● Jan. 2, 2026

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

She could see the ground ahead of her, illuminated, and she realized she was carrying a lantern in her right hand and a spade in her left.

From "Ash" by Malinda Lo

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

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

On the sidewalk, generations play spades in the shade and the joyful screams of children emanate from a custom bouncy house adorned with an Egyptian pharaoh bust.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2026

Life is about showing up for others, and you have done that in spades, but it’s also about enjoying what the world has to offer.

From MarketWatch ● Mar. 10, 2026

In moments of awakeness, I remember the diamonds, relive the clubs, and even smile about the spades.

From "I Am the Messenger" by Markus Zusak

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

This happened on the fourth day, after a long session in which the plowed and salted earth of the Nixon era—Chile, wiretaps, Watergate—was spaded again and again.

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

She raked away our dead leaves, spaded new soil around us, and watered and fertilized.

From "The Wednesday Wars" by Gary D. Schmidt

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

In Topeka, Kans., after spading a hole in his backyard for use as a tornado hideaway, Grist Haydon was visited by a deputy tax assessor, who placed a value of $150 on the diggings.

From Time Magazine Archive

The fiercely spading students were assisting with the excavating of foundations upon which it is proposed to erect the Tsubouchi-Shakespeare Memorial Library.

From Time Magazine Archive

It was easy spading, since the dirt had already been turned up once; also the manure was still in it, so I did not have to haul that again.

From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien

Related Words

• shovel