SPADE

A hart or stag three years old. [Written also spaid, spayade.]

A castrated man or beast.

An implement for digging or cutting the ground, consisting usually of an oblong and nearly rectangular blade of iron, with a handle like that of a shovel. "With spade and pickax armed." Milton.

One of that suit of cards each of which bears one or more figures resembling a spade. "Let spades be trumps!" she said. Pope.

A cutting instrument used in flensing a whale. Spade bayonet, a bayonet with a broad blade which may be used digging; -- called also trowel bayonet. -- Spade handle (Mach.), the forked end of a connecting rod in which a pin is held at both ends. See Illust. of Knuckle joint, under Knuckle.

To dig with a spade; to pare off the sward of, as land, with a spade.