If you're a gardener, you know that a spade is a small shovel with a short handle. A spade is perfect for planting bulbs and digging up weeds.
In addition to a small digging tool, a spade is also a suit of playing card — the black one that looks a bit like an upside-down heart. There's even a card game called "Spades" in which a spade has a higher value than any other suit. The two meanings have different roots; the card suit spade comes from the Greek spathe, and the little shovel kind of spade has Proto-Germanic roots that mean "flat piece of wood."