| E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898. |
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Why not call a spade a spade? Do not palliate sins by euphemisms. | 1 |
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“We call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools but folly,”—Shakespeare: Coriolanus, ii. 1. |
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“I have learned to call wickedness by its own terms: a fig a fig, and a spade a spude,”—John Knox. |
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Spades in cards. A corruption of the Spanish spados, pikes or swords, called by the French piques (pikes). | 2 |
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