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.
Read more about Spade: Etymology, Designs of Spades, Loy Ploughing, Digging Tool, Other Uses of The Term
Other articles related to "spade":
... In August 1906, new changes were brought against all Spade officials for "conspiracy to defraud the government of the title and use of public lands, subornation of perjury, and ... Following Richards' death, Comstock took control of the Spade Ranch and the Comstock and Richards families shared quarters at the Ellsworth house in the ... Comstock closed the C Bar and Overton Ranches, reducing the official land holding of the Spade Ranch ...
... In the oil and chemical process industries, a spade is a round piece of metal with a small tab that is placed in between two pipe flanges to give positive ... The name comes from the shape a little like a garden spade ... The small tab lets one see that the spade is in place ...
Famous quotes containing the word spade:
“As for farming, I am convinced that my genius dates from an older era than the agricultural. I would at least strike my spade into the earth with such careless freedom but accuracy as the woodpecker his bill into a tree.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I hate vulgar realism in literature. 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)
“Some people are like ants. Give them a warm day and a piece of ground and they start digging. There the similarity ends. Ants keep on digging. Most people don’t. They establish contact with the soil, absorb so much vernal vigor that they can’t stay in one place, and desert the fork or spade to see how the rhubarb is coming and whether the asparagus is yet in sight.”
—Hal Borland (1900–1978)