Spades (suit)

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For other uses, see spade (disambiguation).

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Spades is one of the four suits found in playing cards.

In bridge, it ranks highest out of the four suits. It is typically associated with death.

The symbol was first used on French playing cards, made in Rouen and Lyon in the 15th Century, around the time that playing cards were first mass-produced by the use of woodcuts. The suits were based on the four major economic classes of the late Middle Ages: spades represented the military, hearts represented the church, clubs represented agriculture and diamonds represented trade merchants.

In the Germanic countries the spade was the symbol associated with the blade of a spade - and in all Germanic languages the name of the tool and the suit are identical. In German and Dutch the suit is also, alternately, named Schüppen and schoppen (shovel).

It is often stated that the suit is named after Spanish espada (sword), but this is not likely. In Germany and Scandinavia, Spanish playing cards were not in use, and Spanish loanwords in these languages were rare. It should also be noted that the Spanish name for the French suit is picas - not espadas.

In some parts of Britain, namely the West Midlands, the suit can be known as cabbages, or cabbage-leaf, which is a direct correlation with the German suit.^{[citation needed]}