Spade Meaning
/speɪ̯d/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA 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.
nounA cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.
Sentence Examples
Jane calls a spade a spade.
He is the type of a person who calls a spade a spade.
I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
He used a sharp ____ to dig a hole in the garden for the tree.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He used a heavy iron ____ to dig a deep hole in the garden for the new apple tree sapling.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English spade, from Old English spada, spade, spadu (“spade”), from Proto-Germanic *spadô. Doublet of spatha, spathe, and épée.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"'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.'"
— [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
""[...] And not a single spade has gone in the ground - not a single mile of track built.""
— 2021 October 6, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Labour: build HS2 and NPR and end "paper promises"”, in RAIL, number 941, page 25:
"And as for a divorce, I know plenty spades right here in Harlem get married any time they want to."
— 1929, Wallace Thurman, The Blacker the Berry, New York: Collier Books, published 1970, →ISBN, page 161:
"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"."
— 1968, Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
"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 balling spade cats—all that good elaborate petting and patting and pouring soul all over the spades—all over, finished, incredibly."
— 1968, Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →OCLC, page 12:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
He used a sharp ____ to dig a hole in the garden for the tree.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He used a heavy iron ____ to dig a deep hole in the garden for the new apple tree sapling.