spade
See also: Spade, späde, and спаде
English
WOTD – 7 January 2016
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /speɪd/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Homophone: spayed
- Rhymes: -eɪd
Etymology 1
From Middle English spade, from Old English spada, spade, spadu (“spade”), from Proto-Germanic *spadǭ, *spadô, *spadō (“spade”). Cognate with Dutch spade, Old Frisian spada, Old Saxon spado, German Spaten, Hunsrik Spaad. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sph₂-dʰ-, whence also Ancient Greek σπάθη (spáthē, “blade”), Hittite [script needed] (išpatar, “spear”), Persian سپار (sopār, “plow”), Northern Luri ئەسپار (aspār, “digging”) and Central Kurdish ئەسپەر (esper), ئەسپەرە (espere, “cross-piece on shaft of spade to take pressure of foot”).[1] The playing card sense is assimilated from Romance-language terms for "sword," as the suit is depicted in various decks, such as Italian spada. Distant doublet of spatha, spathe, and épée.
Noun
spade (plural spades)
- 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.
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 4, in Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934:
- '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.'
- 2021 October 6, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Labour: build HS2 and NPR and end "paper promises"”, in RAIL, number 941, page 25:
- "[...] And not a single spade has gone in the ground - not a single mile of track built."
-
- A playing card marked with the symbol ♠.
- I've got only one spade in my hand.
- (offensive, ethnic slur) A black person.
- 1929, Wallace Thurman, The Blacker the Berry, New York: Collier Books, published 1970, →ISBN, page 161:
- And as for a divorce, I know plenty spades right here in Harlem get married any time they want to.
- 1968, Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
- 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, Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Bantam, published 1997, →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 balling spade cats—all that good elaborate petting and patting and pouring soul all over the spades—all over, finished, incredibly.
-
- A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.
Derived terms
- call a spade a spade
- in spades
- spadefoot
- spadeful
- spadelike
- spade mashie
- spadework
- spadeworker
Descendants
- → Scottish Gaelic: spaid
- → Fiji Hindi: sipi
Translations
a garden tool with a handle and a flat blade for digging
|
one of the black suits in a deck of cards
|
a black person
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
Verb
spade (third-person singular simple present spades, present participle spading, simple past and past participle spaded)
- To turn over soil with a spade to loosen the ground for planting.
Derived terms
- spader
References
- Dehkhoda dictionary: سپار.
Etymology 2
Compare spay, noun, and spado.
Alternative forms
- spaid
- spayade
Noun
spade (plural spades)
- A hart or stag three years old.
- A castrated man or animal.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for spade in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)
Anagrams
- adeps, apsed, paeds, pedas
Dutch
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈspaːdə/
Audio (file)
Alternative forms
- spa
Etymology 1
From Middle Dutch spade, from Old Dutch *spado, from Proto-Germanic *spadô.
Noun
spade m (plural spaden or spades)
- spade
Etymology 2
From Middle Dutch spâde, from Old Dutch *spādi, from Proto-Germanic *spēdiz (“late”).
Adjective
spade (comparative spader, superlative spaadst)
- (archaic) late
Inflection
| Inflection of spade | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| uninflected | spade | |||
| inflected | spade | |||
| comparative | spader | |||
| positive | comparative | superlative | ||
| predicative/adverbial | spade | spader | het spaadst het spaadste | |
| indefinite | m./f. sing. | spade | spadere | spaadste |
| n. sing. | spade | spader | spaadste | |
| plural | spade | spadere | spaadste | |
| definite | spade | spadere | spaadste | |
| partitive | spades | spaders | — | |
Synonyms
- laat
References
Finnish
Etymology
Possibly from pata (“pot”) (perhaps through English spade, since spades (the card suit) are also called pata in Finnish).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈspɑde/, [ˈs̠pɑde̞]
- Rhymes: -ɑde
- Syllabification(key): spa‧de
Noun
spade
- (military slang) field cook
- Synonym: sotilaskeittäjä
Declension
| Inflection of spade (Kotus type 8/nalle, no gradation) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | spade | spadet | |
| genitive | spaden | spadejen | |
| partitive | spadea | spadeja | |
| illative | spadeen | spadeihin | |
| singular | plural | ||
| nominative | spade | spadet | |
| accusative | nom. | spade | spadet |
| gen. | spaden | ||
| genitive | spaden | spadejen spadeinrare | |
| partitive | spadea | spadeja | |
| inessive | spadessa | spadeissa | |
| elative | spadesta | spadeista | |
| illative | spadeen | spadeihin | |
| adessive | spadella | spadeilla | |
| ablative | spadelta | spadeilta | |
| allative | spadelle | spadeille | |
| essive | spadena | spadeina | |
| translative | spadeksi | spadeiksi | |
| instructive | — | spadein | |
| abessive | spadetta | spadeitta | |
| comitative | — | spadeineen | |
| Possessive forms of spade (type nalle) | ||
|---|---|---|
| possessor | singular | plural |
| 1st person | spadeni | spademme |
| 2nd person | spadesi | spadenne |
| 3rd person | spadensa | |
Friulian
Etymology
From Latin spatha (“a type of sword”), from Ancient Greek σπάθη (spáthē, “broad blade”).
Noun
spade f (plural spadis)
- sword
Italian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈspa.de/
- Rhymes: -ade
- Hyphenation: spà‧de
Noun
spade f
- plural of spada
Middle English
Alternative forms
- spad
Etymology
From Old English spadu.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈspaːd(ə)/
Noun
spade (plural spades)
- tool for digging, shovel
Descendants
- English: spade
- Scots: spade, spaid
- Yola: spaade
References
- “spāde, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Norwegian Bokmål
Etymology
From Middle Low German spade and Old Norse spaði, jarnspaði.
Noun
spade m (definite singular spaden, indefinite plural spader, definite plural spadene)
- a spade (tool)
- kalle en spade for en spade - call a spade a spade
- a spadeful
- tre spader jord - three spadefuls of earth
References
- “spade” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk
Alternative forms
- spåddå (dialectal, Trøndelag)
Etymology
From Old Norse spaði, jarnspaði, from Middle Low German spade.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /²spɑːə/, /²spɑːdə/
Noun
spade m (definite singular spaden, indefinite plural spadar, definite plural spadane)
- a spade, shovel (tool)
- kalle ein spade for ein spade - call a spade a spade
- a spadeful
- ein spade sand - a spadeful of sand
Verb
spade (present tense spader, past tense spadde, past participle spadd or spadt, present participle spadande, imperative spad)
- Alternative form of spa
References
- “spade” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Swedish
Etymology
From Old Norse spaði, from Middle Low German spade, from Proto-Germanic *spadō, from Proto-Indo-European *sph₂-dʰ-.
Noun
spade c
- a shovel
- Synonyms: (more specific) skyffel, (large broad curved) skovel
- a spade (garden tool)
Declension
| Declension of spade | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |||
| Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
| Nominative | spade | spaden | spadar | spadarna |
| Genitive | spades | spadens | spadars | spadarnas |
Related terms
- spada
- spader
- spadformad
- spadhandtag
- spadharv
- spadtag
- spadvända
- spadvändning
References
- spade in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)