Spades (

) () is one of the four

playing card suit In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated ...

s in the standard

French-suited playing cards French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are playing cards, cards that use the French Playing card suit, suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains th ...

. It has the same shape as the

leaf A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the plant stem, stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leav ...

symbol in

German-suited playing cards German-suited playing cards are a very common style of traditional playing card used in many parts of Central Europe characterised by 32- or 36-card packs with the suits of Acorns (''Eichel'' or ''Kreuz''), Leaves (''Grün'', ''Blatt'', ''Lau ...

but its appearance is more akin to that of an upside down black

heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

with a stalk at its base. It symbolises the

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

halberd A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge), is a two-handed polearm that was in prominent use from the 13th to 16th centuries. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It may have a hook or ...

, two medieval weapons, but is actually an adaptation of the German suit symbol of

Leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

created when French suits were invented around 1480.Dummett (1980), p. 22. In

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

, spades rank as the highest suit. In skat and similar games, it is the second-highest suit.

Name

The word "Spade" is probably derived from the

Old Spanish Old Spanish (, , ; ), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance spoken predominantly in Castile and environs during the Middle Ages. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in O ...

''spada'' meaning "

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

" and suggests that Spanish suits were used in England before French suits. The French name for this suit, ("pike"), meant, in the 14th century, a weapon formed by an iron spike placed at the end of a

. In German it is known as . It corresponds to the suit of

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

(, , or, in

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, ) in the

. In Switzerland, the suit is known as ''Schuufle'' ('shovel') and in many German regions, e.g., the

Rhineland The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...

, as ''Schüppe''/''Schippe'' ('shovel').

Characteristics

The spade symbol is a very stylized spearhead shape, pointing upwards, the bottom widening into two arcs of a circle and sweeping towards the centre to then form a sort of foot. Generally, spades are black so they can be used in some games as a pair with

Clubs (suit) Clubs () () is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. The symbol was derived from that of the suit of Acorns (suit), Acorns in a German-suited playing cards, German deck when French suits were invented, a ...

, like

Klondike (solitaire) Klondike is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, as well as one of the most challenging in widespread play.Parlett (1979), pp. 94–95. It has spawned numerous variants includin ...

. They form one of the two

major suit In the card game contract bridge, the major suits are spades () and hearts (). The major suits are of prime importance for tactics and scoring as they outrank the minor suits while bidding and also outscore them (30 per contracted trick for majo ...

s in

(with hearts). In the official skat tournament deck, spades are green, assuming the color of their German-deck equivalent. The following gallery shows the spades in a

standard 52-card deck The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. The main feature of most playing card decks that empower their use in diverse games and other activities is their double-sided design, w ...

. Not shown is the Knight of Spades used in

Tarot card games Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name tarot are called tarocchi ...

: File:01 of spades A.svg,

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

File:02 of spades.svg, 2 File:03 of spades.svg, 3 File:04 of spades.svg, 4 File:05 of spades.svg, 5 File:06 of spades.svg, 6 File:07 of spades.svg, 7 File:08 of spades.svg, 8 File:09 of spades.svg, 9 File:10 of spades - David Bellot.svg, 10 File:Jack of spades fr.svg,

Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, incl ...

File:Queen of spades fr.svg,

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

File:King of spades fr.svg,

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Four-colour packs

Four-color decks are sometimes used in tournaments or online.Allan & Mackay (2007), p. 155. In four-colour packs Spades may be: * black Spades

in English bridge and poker packs and French and Swiss four-colour packs,''Gallery 3 - Sizes, Shapes and Colours''
at a_pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved 4 Aug 2020. * green SuitSpades4colors

in German skat tournament packs or * blue Suitspadesblue

in some American poker decks

Coding

The symbol ♠ is already in the computer code set CP437 and therefore also part of Windows WGL4. In

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

a black ♠ and a white ♤ spade are defined:

References

Literature

* Allan, Elkan and Hannah Mackay (2007). ''The Poker Encyclopedia''. London: Portico. * Dummett, Sir Michael (1980). ''The Game of Tarot''. Duckworth, London. *

Parlett, David David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association. Life David Sidney Parlett was bo ...