SPADES

— 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.

 

— verb (used with object), spad·ed, spad·ing. 

1. to dig, cut, or remove with a spade (sometimes followed by up ): Let's spade up the garden and plant some flowers.

 

— Idioms 

1. call a spade a spade, to call something by its real name; be candidly explicit; speak plainly or bluntly: To call a spade a spade, he's a crook.

2. in spades, Informal.

   1. in the extreme; positively: He's a hypocrite, in spades.

   2. without restraint; outspokenly: I told him what I thought, in spades.

 

— Related forms spade·like, adjective spad·er, noun un·spad·ed, adjective 

 

spade2

— noun 

1. a black figure shaped like an inverted heart and with a short stem at the cusp opposite the point, used on playing cards.

2. a card of the suit bearing such figures.

3. spades.

   1. ( used with a singular or plural verb ) the suit so marked: Spades is trump. Spades count double.

   2. ( used with a plural verb ) Casino. the winning of seven spades or more.

4. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. a black person.

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