Definitions for spade

• Definition
• Anagrams (77)

spade spade

Spelling: [speyd]

IPA: /speɪd/

Spade is a 5 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 8 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 9 points.

You can make 77 anagrams from letters in spade (adeps).

Definitions for spade

noun

1. 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.
2. some implement, piece, or part resembling this.
3. 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.
4. a black figure shaped like an inverted heart and with a short stem at the cusp opposite the point, used on playing cards.
5. a card of the suit bearing such figures.
6. spades. (used with a singular or plural verb) the suit so marked: (used with a plural verb) Casino. the winning of seven spades or more.
7. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used to refer to a black person.

Idioms

1. call a spade a spade, to call something by its real name; be candidly explicit; speak plainly or bluntly:
2. in spades, Informal. in the extreme; positively: without restraint; outspokenly:

verb (used with object)

1. to dig, cut, or remove with a spade (sometimes followed by up):

Origin of spade

before 900; Middle English (noun); Old English spadu; cognate with Dutch spade, German Spaten, Old Norse spathi spade, Greek spáthē broad, flat piece of wood

Examples for spade

The administration refused to budge on calling a spade a spade.

But there are four other published spade stories out there, and it would be nice to have them between covers in one volume.

When a man struck some new thing with his spade, he called out.

Because it is, as spade and Wilse say, a “tool of social control used by governments to regulate sexuality and family formation.”

Showing a picture of Murphy, spade quipped, “Look, children, a falling star ... quick, make a wish.”

She called a spade a spade, and liked frankness and no under meaning to things.

Then lift each plant with a spade or mattock slowly and skillfully.

The Prince took the spade and began to dig, though not very hopefully.

Here, professor, throw off that coat and nglig manner, and grasp this spade.

“We need someone to call a spade a shovel,” said the second guy, referring to Obama.