Shade

How to spell shade

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shade

What does shade mean?

1. nounAn area of relative darkness and coolness where direct light, especially sunlight, is blocked.
2. verbTo screen or shelter something from direct light, or to darken parts of a drawing for effect.
3. nounA small amount, gradation, or variety of a colour or quality.

Shade in a sentence

• noun

  We ate lunch in the shade of a large oak tree.

• verb

  She raised a hand to shade her eyes from the glare.

• noun

  We repainted the hall in a softer shade of grey.

• noun

  The cat always finds a patch of shade on hot afternoons.

• verb

  The artist learned to shade the sketch to suggest depth.

• noun

  His answer carried a shade of doubt.

Where does shade come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Shade is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English sceadu, which meant a shadow, a shaded place, or shelter from light, and which is closely related to the parallel form that gave us 'shadow'. The root traces back to a Proto-Germanic source, with cousins in the Dutch schaduw and German Schatten, all carrying the idea of darkness cast by something blocking the light. Over the centuries the harder pronunciation settled into the simple modern spelling, while the related 'shadow' kept its fuller ending from a different grammatical form of the same Old English noun. From the literal sense of cool darkness, English extended the word to mean a small degree or gradation, as in a shade of meaning or a shade of colour, the idea being a subtle darkening or variation. The spelling itself is mercifully regular, with the silent final 'e' marking the long 'a' sound.

How the word is built

• shade (single Old English root sceadu: shadow, shelter); no prefix or suffix