SPAD

See also: Appendix:Variations of "spad"

English

a three-aspect railway signal at danger

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈspæd/
• Rhymes: -æd

Phrase

SPAD

1. (rail transport, UK) Initialism of signal passed at danger.

   Coordinate term: SPAR

Noun

SPAD (plural SPADs)

1. (rail transport, UK) An instance of a signal passed at danger.
   • 2026 March 4, Christian Wolmar, “Railtrack: what really happened”, in RAIL, number 1056, page 53:

     "We found there had been 60 SPADs in the Paddington throat in the previous eight years, and that was all to do with the layout becoming more complex because of the Heathrow Express.

2. (UK politics, informal) Alternative form of spad (“special advisor in government”).
3. (plant science) A relative measurement of the amount of chlorophyll present in a leaf, based on measurements with a SPAD meter produced by Minolta.
4. (military) Initialism of self-propelled air defense; a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle.

Verb

SPAD (third-person singular simple present SPADs, present participle SPADing, simple past and past participle SPADed)

1. (rail transport, UK) To pass a signal at danger.
   • 2005, Andrew Hopkins, Safety, Culture and Risk: The Organisational Causes of Disasters:

     SPADing is best seen as a systemic problem requiring a systemic solution

   • 2006 July 7, Karen Clarke, Gillian Hardstone, Mark Rouncefield, Ian Sommerville, Trust in Technology: A Socio-Technical Perspective, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 138:

     SN109 should be known to all drivers driving out of Paddington as a multi SPADed signal

   • 2016 December 5, John R. Wilson, Beverley Norris, Ann Mills, People and Rail Systems: Human Factors at the Heart of the Railway, CRC Press, →ISBN:

     Signal awareness aids were present at SPADed signals

Related terms

• danger signal

Anagrams

• DAPs, daps, PADS, pads, APDs, PDAs, APDS, ASPD, SaPD

Malay

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈspad/ [ˈspat̪̚]

Proper noun

SPAD

1. (transport) acronym of Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat (“Land Public Transport Commission”), a public transport regulatory agency in Malaysia