quicko: to spade

Spades, though not exactly an out-and-out winner, has got to at least pull a decent showing when the words get together and brag about how diverse of meanings they have. There's the standard garden implement and, my favorite, the suit for a certain Queen (as well as an entire game). There's calling a spade a spade and the dictionary even lists a few obscurer idioms I hadn't come across.

Now perhaps this is just idiosyncratic, but I also recently heard "spading" used as a gerund -- meaning digging not for soil, but for girls. Flirting, akin to the Australian "chatting up," which has also sounded a bit risque to my American ears -- slightly too close to, say, feeling up or knocking up.