spade

noun

1. 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.

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

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

   Rather than nonstop combat, the day-to-day experience of a Roman soldier was perhaps just as likely to involve spades as swords – though combat readiness was never far from mind.

2. 2

   A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.

3. 3

   A device for terminating an electrical conductor resembling a small spade.

verb

1. 1

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

2. 2

   To move with a spade, or as with a spade.

   ‘Le baccarat,’ intoned the croupier as he spaded the thick chips over the table to Bond.

noun

1. 1

   A playing card marked with the symbol ♠.

   I've got only one spade in my hand.

2. 2

   A black person.

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

   Example: Max was in a hospital in New York and "the night nurse was a groovy spade, 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".

verb

1. 1

   Also a form of spayobsoletesimple past and past participle of spay

Forms

plural

spades

past tense

spaded

past participle

spaded

present participle

spading

third person singular

spades