spad
/ˈspæd/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.84 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A nail one or two inches long, of iron, brass, tin, or tinner iron, with a hole through the flattened head, used to mark stations in underground surveying.
noun
A relative measurement of the amount of chlorophyll present in a leaf, based on measurements with a SPAD meter produced by Minolta.
Example Sentences
- "SPAD Special Advisor"
- "A successful stint as a spad can be a crucial political apprenticeship - as many of the current crop of professional politicians including the Miliband brothers, David Cameron and George Osborne can testify - so long as they stay in the dark."
- "The hit BBC sitcom satirising the inner workings of Whitehall and the so-called spads contains "more than a grain of truth", the head of the cross-party public administration select committee has warned."
- "No. 6.—Spadonas or spads, the first wing-quills of the chick, clipped at about six months."
- "RAW OSTRICH FEATHERS / Primes, Wings, White Feminas, Spads, Etc."
- "“What d’you mean—‘feathers’,” asked the tanned young public school man who volunteered to trot me round, “spads, second-after-chicks, fancies, natals, black butts, adults, juvenals, byocks, chicks, primes, feminas, or what?”[…]The first white ones we call spads.[…]Two or three months after that clipping we pull out the spad quills."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈspæd/