English Explanatory Dictionary

spruce

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. 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.
  2. The wood of a spruce.
  3. Made of the wood of the spruce.
  4. Prussian leather; pruce.
adj
  1. Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
verb
  1. To arrange neatly; tidy up.
  2. To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
  3. To tease.
name
  1. Prussia.
  2. A surname.
  3. A number of places in the United States:
  4. An unincorporated community in Caledonia Township, Alcona County, Michigan.
  5. A township in Roseau County, Minnesota, named for spruce trees there.
  6. An unincorporated community in Bates County, Missouri.
  7. A town and unincorporated community therein, in Oconto County, Wisconsin.

Pronunciation

spro͞os /spɹuːs/ en-us-spruce.ogg /spɹʉs/

Word forms

spruce spruces sprucer sprucest sprucing spruced

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

pulchritudinous prettify neaten titivate

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
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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