spade Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a playing card in the major suit that has one or more black figures on it
    • she led a low spade
    • spades were trumps
  2. noun a sturdy hand shovel that can be pushed into the earth with the foot
  3. noun (ethnic slur) extremely offensive name for a Black person
    nigga; nigra; nigger; jigaboo; coon.
    • only a Black can call another Black a nigga
  4. verb dig (up) with a spade
    • I spade compost into the flower beds

WordNet

Spade noun
Etymology
Cf. Spay, n.
Definitions
  1. (Zoöl.) A hart or stag three years old. Written also spaid, spayade.
  2. Cf. L. spado. A castrated man or beast.
Spade noun
Etymology
AS. spæd; spada; akin to D. spade, G. spaten, Icel. spa&edh;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.
Definitions
  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 transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Spaded; present participle & verbal noun Spading
Definitions
  1. To dig with a spade; to pare off the sward of, as land, with a spade.

Webster 1913