spruce
Part of speech: noun
adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
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.
Inflected forms:
form: spruces
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: spruce
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: sprucer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: sprucest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: spruces
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sprucing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: spruced
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: spruced
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The wood of a spruce.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: Made of the wood of the spruce.
pos: noun
tags: attributive
countable
uncountable
examples: That spruce table is beautiful!
gloss: Prussian leather; pruce.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
gloss: Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
pos: adj
tags: comparable
examples: Hovv often vvould the Svvaines prepare their Morrice & their May / To haue a ſight of her, vvhen all enamoured vvent their vvay? / The ſprevvſeſt Citie-Lads for her vvould faine the Countrie-aire, / And that their prouder Girles had but adultrate beauties ſvvaire, […]
[A] baker's boy in a white apron and blue jumpers went by carrying a basket of bread on his head; and from the nearby tobacconist's, a spruce young lieutenant dressed in a black uniform emerged lighting a cigarette.
He had great neatness of person, and he continued to wear his spruce black coat and his bowler hat, always a little too small for him, in a dapper, jaunty manner.
A spruce young lieutenant came over, saluted and clambered into the back of our jeep, and we were off.
The two clean rooms, where chips are made, are sprucer than a hospital theatre.
gloss: To arrange neatly; tidy up.
pos: verb
tags: usually
with-up
gloss: To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
usually
with-up
gloss: To tease.
pos: verb
Derived words: black spruce
blue spruce
Brewer's spruce
Colorado blue spruce
Colorado spruce
Colorado green spruce
dark-bark spruce
Engelmann spruce
Engelmann's spruce
European spruce
Ezo spruce
green spruce
Jezo spruce
Koyama's spruce
Norway spruce
Patton's spruce
red spruce
Serbian spruce
Siberian spruce
silverspruce
silver spruce
Picea pungens)
Siskiyou spruce
Sitka spruce
skunk spruce
spruce aphid
spruce beer
spruce cone
spruce grouse
spruce hen
spruce gum
spruceless
sprucely
spruceness
spruce pine
sprucery
spruce siskin
spruce tip
sprucify
sprucy
weeping spruce
western spruce budworm
white spruce
Yeddo spruce
Yezo spruce
sprucen
spruce up
unspruced
Translations: