Spade
A spade is a tool designed primarily for the purpose of digging or removing earth and spreading the soil. Early spades were made of riven wood. After the art of metalworking was discovered, spades were made with sharper tips of metal. Before the advent of metal spades manual labor was less efficient at moving earth, with picks being required to break up the soil in addition to a spade for moving the dirt. With a metal tip, a spade can both break and move the earth in most situations, increasing efficiency.
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Famous quotes containing the word spade:
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
“A spade is not a spade, and it is just
That any tremulous twisting of her lips
Should be mere prettiness, or call it grace
The canto amoroso of her hips.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)