Word.ws English Dictionary

spruce

/spɹuːs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern Ireland/spɹʉs/

spruce noun: 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.

spruce: any of various large coniferous evergreen trees or shrubs from the genus Picea, found in northern...
Image: Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

spruce (countable and uncountable, plural spruces or 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. (attributive) Made of the wood of the spruce.
    • That spruce table is beautiful!
  4. (obsolete) Prussian leather; pruce.

Adjective

spruce (comparative sprucer, superlative sprucest)

  1. (comparable) Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
    • 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, […]1606, William Warner, “The Sixteenth Booke. Chapter CI.”, in A Continuance of Albions England: […], London: […] Felix Kyngston [and Richard Bradock?] for George Potter, […], →OCLC, page 399
    • [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.1916, Henry Beston, A Volunteer Poilu
    Synonyms:
    pulchritudinous

Verb

spruce (third-person singular simple present spruces, present participle sprucing, simple 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.

Proper noun capitalized: Spruce

Spruce

  1. (obsolete) Prussia.
  2. A surname.
  3. An unincorporated community in Caledonia Township, Alcona County, Michigan.
  4. A township in Roseau County, Minnesota, named for spruce trees there.
  5. An unincorporated community in Bates County, Missouri.
  6. A town and unincorporated community therein, in Oconto County, Wisconsin.

spruce meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

spruce in Hindi

स्प्रूस, स्प्रुस

spruce in Tamil

ஸ்ப்ரூஸ், ஸ்ப்ருஸ்

spruce in Marathi

स्प्रूस, स्प्रुस

spruce in Urdu

صنوبر
More languagesFewer languages
spruce in Bengali
স্প্রুস
spruce in Telugu
స్ప్రూస్, స్ప్రుస్
spruce in Malayalam
വൃത്തിയായ, വെടിപ്പായ, അലങ്കാരമുളള
spruce in Kannada
ಅಂದ, ಚೊಕ್ಕಟ, ಸೂಟಿ
spruce in Punjabi
ਸਪਰੂਸ, ਸਪ੍ਰੂਸ, ਸਪਰੂਜ਼
spruce in Gujarati
સ્પ્રુસ, સ્પ્રૂસ, સ્પ્રુઝ
spruce in Odia
ସ୍ପ୍ରୁସ୍, ସ୍ପ୍ରସ୍, ସ୍ପ୍ରୁସ
spruce in Nepali
स्प्रुस, स्प्रूस, स्प्रस
spruce in Arabic
تَنُّوب tannūb
spruce in Vietnamese
vân sam

Examples of spruce in a sentence

  • 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.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XXXI, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:
  • A spruce young lieutenant came over, saluted and clambered into the back of our jeep, and we were off.1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:
  • The two clean rooms, where chips are made, are sprucer than a hospital theatre.2012 October 13, “Plessey returns: Chips with everything”, in The Economist, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...

All 37 example sentences with spruce

Synonyms of spruce

Forms of spruce

Noun
pluralspruces
pluralspruce
Adjective
comparativesprucer
superlativesprucest
Verb
third-person singular presentspruces
present participlesprucing
past participlespruced
pastspruced

Plural of spruce: spruces or spruce

Origin of spruce

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.

For Prussia, an alteration of Pruce; see that entry and spruce for more.

Words formed from spruce

Phrases with spruce

Words that rhyme with spruce

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about spruce

What does spruce mean?
Spruce means 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.
What is spruce in Hindi?
Spruce in Hindi is स्प्रूस, स्प्रुस. See Spruce meaning in Hindi.
How do you use spruce in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is spruce?
Spruce can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce spruce?
Spruce is pronounced /spɹuːs/ (US).
What is the plural of spruce?
The plural of spruce is spruces.

Words near spruce in the dictionary

  1. Sprows
  2. SPRs
  3. SPRT
  4. SPRTs
  5. Sprucan
  6. spruce
  7. spruce aphid
  8. spruce aphids
  9. spruce beer
  10. spruce beers
  11. spruce cone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spruce (page history and authors); Spruce (page history and authors); spruce (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spruce (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spruce (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); spruce (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); spruce (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-spruce.ogg.

Cite this entry: “spruce.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spruce. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.