spruce

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see also: Spruce

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Pronunciation

• enPR: spro͞os, (America) IPA: /spɹuːs/

Noun

spruce

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. (uncountable) The wood of a spruce.
3. (used attributively) Made of the wood of the spruce.

   That spruce table is beautiful!

4. (obsolete) Prussian leather; pruce.

   • Spruce, a sort of leather corruptly so called for Prussia leather.

Translations

• French: épicéa (France), (Quebec) épinette
• German: Fichte
• Italian: abete rosso, peccio
• Portuguese: abeto vermelho, pícea, espruce
• Russian: ель
• Spanish: pícea

Translations

• German: Fichtenholz
• Portuguese: pícea, abeto vermelho
• Russian: ель

Translations

• Russian: ело́вый

Adjective

spruce (comparative sprucer, superlative sprucest)

1. (comparable) Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
   • 1919, William Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 31

     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.

   • 2012, The Economist, 13th Oct 2012, Plessey returns: Chips with everything ↗

     The two clean rooms, where chips are made, are sprucer than a hospital theatre.

Translations

• Russian: наря́дный

Verb

spruce (spruces, present participle sprucing; past and past participle spruced)

1. (usually with up) To arrange neatly; tidy up.
2. (ambitransitive, usually with up) To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
3. To tease.

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Spruce

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Proper noun

1. (obsolete) Prussia.

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