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spruce

Pronunciation: /spɹuːs/

The English word “spruce” has 8 meanings listed here.

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.

adjective

  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.

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,…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.