spruce
Meanings
Noun
- light soft moderately strong wood of spruce trees; used especially for timbers and millwork
- any coniferous tree of the genus Picea
- Any of various large coniferous evergreen trees or shrubs from the genus Picea, found in northern temperate and boreal regions; originally and more fully spruce fir.
- The wood of a spruce.
- Made of the wood of the spruce.
- Prussian leather; pruce.
Verb
- make neat, smart, or trim
- "Spruce up your house for Spring"
- dress and groom with particular care, as for a special occasion
- "He spruced up for the party"
- To arrange neatly; tidy up.
- To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
- To tease.
Adjective Satellite
- marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners
Adj
- Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English Spruce, an alteration of Pruce (“Prussia”), from Medieval Latin, from a Baltic language, probably Old Prussian; for more, see Prussia. Spruce, spruse (1412), and Sprws (1378) were terms for commodities brought to England by Hanseatic merchants (beer, wood, leather). The tree with this name was also believed to have been native to Prussia. The adjective and verb senses ("trim, neat" and "to make trim, neat") are attested from 1594, and originate with spruce leather (1466), which was used to make a popular style of jerkins in the 1400s that was considered smart-looking.
Synonyms
dapper, dashing, jaunty, natty, pulchritudinous, raffish, rakish, slick up, smarten up, snappy, spiff up, spiffy, spruce up, titivate, tittivate
Scrabble Score: 10
spruce is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordspruce is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
spruce is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary