Meaning of spad | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A government adviser, often in a political or media role.
   UK, informal
2. 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.
3. Clipping of spadona/spadone.
   abbreviation, alt-of, clipping
4. An instance of a signal passed at danger.
   UK
5. Alternative letter-case form of spad (“special adviser”).
   UK, alt-of, informal
6. A relative measurement of the amount of chlorophyll present in a leaf, based on measurements with a SPAD meter produced by Minolta.
7. Initialism of self-propelled air defense; a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle.
   abbreviation, alt-of, initialism

Examples

“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.”

“An improvement was noted in the demand for femina wings, spads and long bodies;”

CEFR level