spade
1 Americannoun
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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.
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some implement, piece, or part resembling this.
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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)
idioms
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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.
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in spades,
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in the extreme; positively.
He's a hypocrite, in spades.
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without restraint; outspokenly.
I told him what I thought, in spades.
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noun
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a black figure shaped like an inverted heart and with a short stem at the cusp opposite the point, used on playing cards.
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a card of the suit bearing such figures.
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spades,
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(used with a singular or plural verb) the suit so marked: Spades count double.
Spades is trump.
Spades count double.
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(used with a plural verb) the winning of seven spades or more.
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Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used to refer to a Black person.
noun
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a tool for digging, typically consisting of a flat rectangular steel blade attached to a long wooden handle
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an object or part resembling a spade in shape
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( as modifier )
a spade beard
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a heavy metallic projection attached to the trail of a gun carriage that embeds itself into the ground and so reduces recoil
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a type of oar blade that is comparatively broad and short Compare spoon
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a cutting tool for stripping the blubber from a whale or skin from a carcass
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to speak plainly and frankly
verb
noun
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the black symbol on a playing card resembling a heart-shaped leaf with a stem
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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
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a derogatory word for Black
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informal in an extreme or emphatic way
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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spadesimple
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spadessimple
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have spadedperfect
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has spadedperfect
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am spadingprogressive
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are spadingprogressive
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is spadingprogressive
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have been spadingperfect progressive
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has been spadingperfect progressive
Past
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spadedsimple
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had spadedperfect
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was spadingprogressive
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were spadingprogressive
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had been spadingperfect progressive
Future
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."
Vocabulary lists containing spade
My Brother Sam is Dead
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"Digging" by Seamus Heaney
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"Digging" by Seamus Heaney
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
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
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
There was plenty of room, but for the new part I had to spade through turf, which was much harder digging.
From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien
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
We saw families and volunteers, wearing masks and rubber gloves, trying to dig through the rubble with spades and crowbars.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 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
I have no business improving others, much less buffing up Lelia, who has it over me in spades.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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
Pups Albert Mazarak, callous Jersey City dweller, spaded recently in his back yard beneath a neighbor's inquiring eye.
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
Professor Aiken thinks that computers will take over intellectual drudgery as power-driven tools took over spading and reaping.
From Time Magazine Archive
Other settlers heard of it and began spading up crocks of wheat, kitchen utensils and tins of gasoline.
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.