SPRUCE

dapper, dashing, jaunty, natty, raffish, rakish, spiffy, snappy, spruce

(adjective) marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners; “a dapper young man”; “a jaunty red hat”

spruce

(noun) any coniferous tree of the genus Picea

spruce

(noun) light soft moderately strong wood of spruce trees; used especially for timbers and millwork

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology

Noun

spruce (countable and uncountable, plural spruces or spruce)

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.

(uncountable) The wood of a spruce.

(used attributively) Made of the wood of the spruce.

(obsolete) Prussian leather; pruce.

Adjective

spruce (comparative sprucer, superlative sprucest)

(comparable) Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).

Verb

spruce (third-person singular simple present spruces, present participle sprucing, simple past and past participle spruced)

(usually with up) To arrange neatly; tidy up.

(ambitransitive, usually with up) To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).

To tease.

Anagrams

• cusper, recups

Etymology

Proper noun

Spruce

(obsolete) Prussia.

Anagrams

• cusper, recups

Source: Wiktionary

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Spruce, n. Etym: [OE. Spruce or Pruse, Prussia, Prussian. So named because it was first known as a native of Prussia, or because its sprouts were used for making, spruce beer. Cf. Spruce beer, below, Spruce, a.]

1. (Bot.)

Definition: Any coniferous tree of the genus Picea, as the Norway spruce (P. excelsa), and the white and black spruces of America (P. alba and P. nigra), besides several others in the far Northwest. See Picea.

2. The wood or timber of the spruce tree.

3. Prussia leather; pruce. [Obs.] Spruce, a sort of leather corruptly so called for Prussia leather. E. Phillips. Douglas spruce (Bot.), a valuable timber tree (Pseudotsuga Douglasii) of Northwestern America.

– Essence of spruce, a thick, dark-colored, bitterish, and acidulous liquid made by evaporating a decoction of the young branches of spruce.

– Hemlock spruce (Bot.), a graceful coniferous tree (Tsuga Canadensis) of North America. Its timber is valuable, and the bark is largely used in tanning leather.

– Spruce beer. Etym: [G. sprossenbier; sprosse sprout, shoot (akin to E. sprout, n.) + bier beer. The word was changed into spruce because the beer came from Prussia (OE. Spruce), or because it was made from the sprouts of the spruce. See Sprout, n., Beer, and cf. Spruce, n.] A kind of beer which is tinctured or flavored with spruce, either by means of the extract or by decoction.

– Spruce grouse. (Zoöl.) Same as Spruce partridge, below.

– Spruce leather. See Spruce, n., 3.

– Spruce partridge (Zoöl.), a handsome American grouse (Dendragapus Canadensis) found in Canada and the Northern United States; -- called also Canada grouse.

Spruce, a. [Compar. Sprucer; superl. Sprucest] Etym: [Perhaps fr. spruce a sort of leather from Prussia, which was an article of finery. See Spruce, n.]

1. Neat, without elegance or dignity; -- formerly applied to things with a serious meaning; now chiefly applied to persons. "Neat and spruce array." Remedy of Love.

2. Sprightly; dashing. [Obs.] "Now, my spruce companions." Shak. He is so spruce that he can never be genteel. Tatler.

Syn.

– Finical; neat; trim. See Finical.

– Sruce"ly, adv.

– Spruce"ness, n.

Spruce, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Spruced; p. pr. & vb. n. Sprucing.]

Definition: To dress with affected neatness; to trim; to make spruce.

Spruce, v. i.

Definition: To dress one's self with affected neatness; as, to spruce up.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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