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What is "spade"

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spade
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
spade
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A spade lay half-buried in mud.
▪ And it's no use calling a spade an effing shovel, when saying spade would have been far more effective.
▪ Beyond the stables the monotonous sound of Varro's spade went on and on.
▪ I thought the going would be easy after penetrating the surface layers of soil and roots with spade and ax.
▪ The three spades needed when ferreting: the Norfolk long spade, the graft, and the filling-in spade.
▪ The woman stuck her spade in the ground.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Spade

Spade \Spade\ (sp[=a]d), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Spaded; p. pr. & vb. n. Spading.] To dig with a spade; to pare off the sward of, as land, with a spade.

Spade

Spade \Spade\, n. [Cf. Spay, n.]

  1. (Zo["o]l.) A hart or stag three years old. [Written also spaid, spayade.]

  2. [Cf. L. spado.] A castrated man or beast.

Spade

Spade \Spade\, n. [AS. sp[ae]d; spada; akin to D. spade, G. spaten, Icel. spa[eth]i, Dan. & Sw. spade, L. spatha a spatula, a broad two-edged sword, a spathe, Gr. spa`qh. Cf. Epaulet, Spade at cards, Spathe, Spatula.]

  1. An implement for digging or cutting the ground, consisting usually of an oblong and nearly rectangular blade of iron, with a handle like that of a shovel. ``With spade and pickax armed.''
    --Milton.

  2. [Sp. espada, literally, a sword; -- so caused because these cards among the Spanish bear the figure of a sword. Sp. espada is fr. L. spatha, Gr. spa`qh. See the Etymology above.] One of that suit of cards each of which bears one or more figures resembling a spade.

    ``Let spades be trumps!'' she said.
    --Pope.

  3. A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.

    Spade bayonet, a bayonet with a broad blade which may be used digging; -- called also trowel bayonet.

    Spade handle (Mach.), the forked end of a connecting rod in which a pin is held at both ends. See Illust. of Knuckle joint, under Knuckle.

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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
spade

"tool for digging," Old English spadu "spade," from Proto-Germanic *spadan (cognates: Old Frisian spada "a spade," Middle Dutch spade "a sword," Old Saxon spado, Middle Low German spade, German Spaten), from PIE *spe-dh-, from root *spe- (2) "long, flat piece of wood" (cognates: Greek spathe "wooden blade, paddle," Old English spon "chip of wood, splinter," Old Norse spann "shingle, chip;" see spoon (n.)).\n

\n"A spade differs from a two-handed shovel chiefly in the form and thickness of the blade" [Century Dictionary]. To call a spade a spade "use blunt language, call things by right names" (1540s) translates a Greek proverb (known to Lucian), ten skaphen skaphen legein "to call a bowl a bowl," but Erasmus mistook Greek skaphe "trough, bowl" for a derivative of the stem of skaptein "to dig," and the mistake has stuck [see OED].

spade

black figure on playing cards," 1590s, probably from Italian spade, plural of spada "the ace of spades," literally "sword, spade," from Latin spatha "broad, flat weapon or tool," from Greek spathe "broad blade" (see spade (n.1)). Phrase in spades "in abundance" first recorded 1929 (Damon Runyon), probably from bridge, where spades are the highest-ranking suit.\n\nThe invitations to the musicale came sliding in by pairs and threes and spade flushes.

[O.Henry, "Cabbages & Kings," 1904]

\nDerogatory meaning "black person" is 1928, from the color of the playing card symbol.
Wiktionary
spade

Etymology 1 n. 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. 2 A playing card marked with the symbol (term: ♠). 3 (context offensive ethnic slur English) A black person. 4 A cutting instrument used in flense a whale. vb. 1 To turn over soil with a spade to loosen the ground for planting. 2 (context videogaming English) To collect and statistically analyze data, for the purpose of determining the underlying random number generator structure or numeric formul

  1. Etymology 2

    alt. 1 A hart or stag three years old. 2 A castrated man or animal. n. 1 A hart or stag three years old. 2 A castrated man or animal.

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WordNet
spade

  1. n. a playing card in the major suit of spades

  2. a sturdy hand shovel that can be pushed into the earth with the foot

  3. (ethnic slur) offensive name for a Black person; "only a Black can call another Black a nigga" [syn: nigger, nigga, coon, jigaboo, nigra]

  4. v. dig (up) with a spade; "I spade compost into the flower beds"

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Gazetteer
Spade, TX -- U.S. Census Designated Place in Texas
Population (2000): 100
Housing Units (2000): 49
Land area (2000): 1.959316 sq. miles (5.074604 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 1.959316 sq. miles (5.074604 sq. km)
FIPS code: 69380
Located within: Texas (TX), FIPS 48
Location: 33.918381 N, 102.149654 W
ZIP Codes (1990):
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Spade, TX
Spade
Wikipedia
Spade

A spade is a tool primarily for digging, comprising a blade – typically narrower and less curved than that of a shovel – and a long handle. Early spades were made of riven wood. After the art of metalworking was discovered, spades were made with sharper tips of metal. Before the introduction of metal spades manual labor was less efficient at moving earth, with picks being required to break up the soil in addition to a spade for moving the dirt. With a metal tip, a spade can both break and move the earth in most situations, increasing efficiency.

Spade (disambiguation)

A spade is a digging and gardening tool.

Spade or Spades may also refer to:

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "spade".

There were his irrigation boots and a spade for cutting water out of the Acequia del Monte into his back field, or into his apple and plum trees, or into his garden.

She ached to be outside in the fresh air, to be dressed in her oldest jeans, turning over spades full of soft loamy earth, feeling the excitement and pleasure of siting the bulbs, of allowing her imagination to paint for her the colourful picture they would make in the spring, in their uniform beds set among lawn pathways and bordered by a long deep border of old-fashioned perennial plants.

There is not simply an inquiry as to the value of classic culture, a certain jealousy of the schools where it is obtained, a rough popular contempt for the graces of learning, a failure to see any connection between the first aorist and the rolling of steel rails, but there is arising an angry protest against the conditions of a life which make one free of the serene heights of thought and give him range of all intellectual countries, and keep another at the spade and the loom, year after year, that he may earn food for the day and lodging for the night.

Two ox drawn wagons had come to the fort with spades and picks and as soon as the tools were unloaded ather Sarsfield commandeered the two vehicles so that the wounded could be carried to doctors and hospitals.

Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.

The leader of the troop was Captain Bludder, a huge Alsatian bully, with fiercely-twisted moustachios, and fiery-red beard cut like a spade.

Davey went to work next morning with a spade, tossing gravel against a sloping screen, while Buglet knelt in the dust to scrabble for artifacts.

Master Byles Gridley had struck a spade deeper than he knew into his first countermine, for Kitty had none of those delicate scruples about the means of obtaining information which might have embarrassed a diplomatist of higher degree.

They had been ages working out how you put recognisable hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades on each as a motif, but between radishes and black olives as fiddly little decorations they had come up with something acceptable.

They edged past ox carts loaded high with spades, gabions and great timber baulks that would become gun platforms.

Next I bought a joint, a popper, a phial of cocaine and a plug of opium from a fat spade in Times Square and snuffled it all up in a gogo bar toilet.

A few days later, on the 3rd of November, the stranger, working on the plateau, had stopped, letting his spade drop to the ground, and Harding, who was observing him from a little distance, saw that tears were again flowing from his eyes.

The boatman was beating the mako over the head with a hammer, and another man was stabbing at the fish with what looked like a narrow spade.

The disembodied voiceover is saying how the Num Num Snack Factory takes meat by-products, whatever you have your tongues or hearts or lips or genitals chews them up, seasons them, and poops them out in the shape of a spade or a diamond or a club onto your choice of cracker for you to eat yourself.

The cell was packed, with tired men, unhappy men, spade cats and ofay, handsome men and warped-looking creatures, sick guys lying on their sides on the cement floor, and jaunty swinging hipsters with knees pulled up on the bench, chewing gum and laughing to themselves.