The word spade holds many different meanings and connotations. A spade is a tool that is similar to a shovel, which means it is mostly used for digging. There are a few tools that are also called spades. In kitchenware, there is a flat scoop used to pick up a large amount of ice cream at once.
Spades are also one of the four card suits that look like a leaf more than a shovel. The term spayed is the past tense of the word spay, which means to sterilize a female animal by removing its' reproductive organs.