• IPA^(key):/speɪ̯d/

  • Audio(US):

    (file)

  • Audio(General Australian):

    (file)

• (Scotland)IPA^(key):/sped/
• Rhymes:-eɪd
• Homophone:spayed(except Scotland)

FromMiddle Englishspade, fromOld Englishspada,spade,spadu(“spade”), fromProto-Germanic*spadô.Doublet ofspatha,spathe, andépée.

spade (pluralspades)

1. Agardentool with a handle and a flatblade fordigging. Not to be confused with ashovel which is used for moving earth or other materials.
   • [1898],J[ohn] Meade Falkner,Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.:Jonathan Cape, published1934,→OCLC:

     'Make your mind easy,' Ratsey said; 'I have dug too often in this graveyard for any to wonder if they see me with aspade.'

   • 2021 October 6, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Labour: build HS2 and NPR and end "paper promises"”, inRAIL, number941, page25:

     "[...] And not a singlespade has gone in the ground - not a single mile of track built."

2. A cutting instrument used inflensing awhale.
3. (Can weverify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?)(furryfandom,vulgar) Thevulva of canine species.

• → Scottish Gaelic:spaid
• → Fiji Hindi:sipi

spade (third-person singular simple presentspades,present participlespading,simple past and past participlespaded)

1. To turn over soil with a spade to loosen the ground for planting.

• spader

Probably fromItalianspade, plural ofspada(“the ace of spades”, literally“sword, spade”), from earlier*spata, fromLatinspatha, fromAncient Greekσπᾰ́θη(spắthē). Cognate with Etymology 1. So called for the shape, though what the shape was exactly meant to represent has been debated.^[1]

spade (pluralspades)

1. (card games) Aplaying card marked with the symbol♠.

   I've got only onespade in my hand.

2. (offensive,ethnicslur) Ablack person.
   • 1929,Wallace Thurman,The Blacker the Berry, New York: Collier Books, published1970,→ISBN,page161:

     And as for a divorce, I know plentyspades right here in Harlem get married any time they want to.

   • 1968,Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, inSlouching Towards Bethlehem:

     Example: Max was in a hospital in New York and "the night nurse was a groovyspade, and in the afternoon for therapy there was a chick from Israel who was interesting, but there was nothing much to do in the morning, so I left".

   • 1968,Tom Wolfe,The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Bantam, published1997,→ISBN,page 9:

     It had even gotten to the point that Negroes were no longer in the hip scene, not even as totem figures. It was unbelievable.Spades, the very soul figures of Hip, of jazz, of the hip vocabulary itself, man and like dig and baby and scarf and split and later and so fine, of civil rights and graduating from Reed College and living on North Beach, down Mason, and ballingspade cats—all that good elaborate petting and patting and pouring soul all over thespades—all over, finished, incredibly.

spade

1. (obsolete)simplepast andpastparticiple ofspay

• adeps,apsed,paeds,pedas

• IPA^(key):/ˈspaːdə/

• Audio:

  (file)

• spa

FromMiddle Dutchspade, fromOld Dutch*spado, fromProto-Germanic*spadô.

spade m (pluralspadenorspades)

1. spade

FromMiddle Dutchspâde, fromOld Dutch*spādi, fromProto-Germanic*spēdiz(“late”).

spade (comparativespader,superlativespaadst)

1. (archaic)late

• laat

Possibly frompata(“pot”) (perhaps through Englishspade, since spades (the card suit) are also calledpata in Finnish).

• IPA^(key):/ˈspɑde/,[ˈs̠pɑ̝de̞]
• Rhymes:-ɑde
• Hyphenation^(key):spa‧de

spade

1. (militaryslang)field cook

   Synonym:sotilaskeittäjä

FromLatinspatha(“a type of sword”), fromAncient Greekσπάθη(spáthē,“broad blade”).

spade f (pluralspadis)

1. sword

• IPA^(key):/ˈspa.de/
• Rhymes:-ade
• Hyphenation:spà‧de

spade f

1. plural ofspada

• spad

FromOld Englishspadu.

• IPA^(key):/ˈspaːd(ə)/

spade (pluralspades)

1. tool fordigging,shovel

• English:spade
• Scots:spade,spaid
• Yola:spaade

• “spāde,n.”, inMED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.:University of Michigan,2007.

FromMiddle Low Germanspade andOld Norsespaði,jarnspaði.

spade m (definite singularspaden,indefinite pluralspader,definite pluralspadene)

1. spade(a garden tool)

   kalle enspade for enspade ―call a spade a spade

2. spadeful

   trespader jord ―three spadefuls of earth

• “spade” inThe Bokmål Dictionary.

• spåddå(dialectal,Trøndelag dialect)
• spa(dialectal)

Inherited fromOld Norsespaði.

• IPA^(key):/²spɑː(d)ə/

spade m (definite singularspaden,indefinite pluralspadar,definite pluralspadane)

1. spade,shovel(a garden tool)

   kalle einspade for einspade ―call a spade a spade

2. spadeful

   einspade sand ―a spadeful of sand

• hake(“(wooden) shovel”)
• rokko(“(wooden) shovel”)(dialectal)

• steikespade

spade (present tensespader,past tensespadde,past participlespaddorspadt,present participlespadande,imperativespad)

1. Alternative form ofspa

• “spade” inThe Nynorsk Dictionary.

• IPA^(key):/ˈspɑ.de/

spade

1. inflection ofspadu:
   1. nominativeplural
   2. accusativesingular/plural
   3. genitive/dativesingular

FromOld Norsespaði, fromMiddle Low Germanspade, fromProto-Germanic*spadô.

spade c

1. shovel

   Synonyms:(more specific)skyffel,(large broad curved)skovel

2. aspade(a garden tool)

• spade inSvenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)