spade

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 (sopâr, “plow”), Northern Luri ئەسپار (aspār, “digging”) and Central Kurdish ئەسپەر (esper), ئەسپەرە (espere, “cross-piece on shaft of spade to take pressure of foot”). 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

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.
   … And not a single spade has gone in the ground - not a single mile of track built. October 6 2021, Paul Stephen, “Network News: Labour: build HS2 and NPR and end "paper promises"”, in RAIL, number 941, page 25
2. A playing card marked with the symbol ♠.
   I've got only one spade in my hand.
3. (offensive, ethnic slur) A black person.
   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, 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, Bantam, published 1997, page 9
4. A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.

verb

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

Etymology 2

Compare spay, noun, and spado.

noun

1. A hart or stag three years old.
2. A castrated man or animal.