Other forms: shades, shaded, shading
Shade is the cool dark patch where something stands between the ground and the sun — under a tree, behind a wall, beneath a big umbrella. On a hot day you cross the road to walk in it.
Keep it apart from shadow: shade is an area with no shape of its own, while a shadow is the dark outline that one particular thing throws. A shade is also a version of a colour — two shades of green, a shade lighter — and by extension a small degree of anything: a shade too long, shades of meaning. A shade keeps light off, whether it sits on a lamp or pulls down over a window, and Americans call sunglasses shades. As a verb you shade your eyes with your hand, and an artist shades a drawing to darken it.
1nounshadeThe cool dark area where sunlight is blocked.~56%
“They ate their lunch in the shade of an old wall.”
2nountintA version of a colour, lighter or darker than another.~33%
“The room is painted in two shades of green.”
3nouncoverA cover that keeps light off — on a lamp, or over a window.~4%
“Pull the shade down; the sun is straight in my eyes.”
4verbdarkenTo keep light off something, or to darken part of a drawing.~7%
“She shaded her eyes and looked out to sea.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 167 sentences found in the wild and placed 109 of them on a sense (58 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Shade and shadow are not relatives — they are the same word, come down two roads and kept in both forms, and English quietly gave each half a different job. Ancient Greek holds the cousins: σκιά and σκότος, the σκότος that still turns up in scoto- words.
Middle English
schade
English, today
shade
From Middle English schade. a doublet of shadow. Cognate with Ancient Greek σκότος (whence scoto-) and σκιά (whence scia-, and uncertainly via σκίουρος squirrel).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA