Word.ws English Dictionary

spades

UK/speɪdz/

spades is the plural of spade.

spades is the third-person singular simple present indicative of spade.

Noun

spades pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) One of the four suits of playing cards, marked with the symbol ♠.
  2. (plural, plural-only) A card game in which the spade suit cards are trumps.
    • Griff and his cronies played spades at the back of the classroom.2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 57

Meaning of spade

Noun (1)

spade (plural spades)

  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.
    • '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
  2. A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale.
  3. A device for terminating an electrical conductor resembling a small spade.

Noun (2)

spade (plural spades)

  1. A playing card marked with the symbol ♠.
    • I've got only one spade in my hand.
  2. (ethnic, offensive, 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, →ISBN, page 161

See all 8 meanings of spade

Proper noun capitalized: Spades

Spades

  1. (plural) plural of Spade

Words formed from spades

Phrases with spades

Words that rhyme with spades

Questions about spades

What does spades mean?
Spades means one of the four suits of playing cards, marked with the symbol ♠.
What is spades the plural of?
Spades is the plural of spade.
What part of speech is spades?
Spades can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce spades?
Spades is pronounced /speɪdz/ (UK).

Words near spades in the dictionary

  1. spadeloads
  2. spademan
  3. spademen
  4. spader
  5. spaders
  6. spades
  7. spadesful
  8. spadesman
  9. spadesmen
  10. spadetail
  11. spadetails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spades (page history and authors); Spades (page history and authors); spade (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-spades.ogg.

Cite this entry: “spades.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spades. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.