Home › Glossary › Letter S

spade

Tools
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A spade is a long-handled digging tool with a flat, usually rectangular blade used to cut soil, turf, or roots.

Detailed Definition
The spade's firm edge is pressed into the ground with the foot, making it suited to digging, edging, trenching, planting, and grave making. It is among the most resonant tools in poetry because it joins gardening, agriculture, archaeology, labour, and burial. A spade may turn soil for new life or open earth for the dead, embodying creation and mortality in one action. It also symbolises inheritance, rootedness, and honest work, especially when the hand follows marks left by earlier generations.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Seamus Heaney's Digging, the spade represents inherited labour and the poet's relationship with family tradition; The gardener pressed the spade into the dark earth and turned a shining slice of soil; A spade may symbolise both planting and burial; Its blade can open ground for new life or prepare a grave for the dead.
Additional Notes
The spade is strongly associated with digging, planting, turf cutting, archaeology, and burial. Its flat blade is pressed into the ground, often with the foot, distinguishing it from the scooping action of a shovel. In poetry it can open earth for seeds or graves, joining fertility and mortality in a single image. It may also represent family inheritance and honest labour. Related terms include shovel, trowel, hoe, grave, soil, turf, garden, digging, planting, burial, ancestry, labour, roots, and the physical uncovering of history.
Also Known As
digging spade garden spade
Skip to main content