spruik
/spɹuːk/
spruik verb: to promote a thing or idea to another person, usually informally.
Verb
spruik (third-person singular simple present spruiks, present participle spruiking, simple past and past participle spruiked)
- To promote a thing or idea to another person, usually informally.
- There was no spruiking or showmanship, no flash shirts or ten-gallon hats.1948, Louis Esson, Louis Esson and the Australian Theatre, page 18
- Lennon spruiks laptop 28 years after his death [title]2008 December 30, “Lennon spruiks laptop 28 years after his death”, in The Sydney Morning Herald
Synonyms of spruik
Forms of spruik
| third-person singular present | spruiks |
|---|---|
| present participle | spruiking |
| past participle | spruiked |
| past | spruiked |
| alternative form (obsolete) | sprook |
Origin of spruik
Unknown, likely Germanic. Compare Dutch spraak (“speech”), spreek (“speak”), spreuk (“saying”), sprook (“a story, fiction, tale, or false idea”). First recorded in the late 1890s and early 1900s, suggesting a possible derivation from Afrikaans (i.e. brought back by soldiers returning from the Boer War). With the exception of a few early uses of sprook, the word's spelling has been fixed since it first entered the language. The uncommon ⟨ui⟩ digraph provides further evidence for an Afrikaans or Dutch origin.
Words formed from spruik
Words that rhyme with spruik
Questions about spruik
- What does spruik mean?
- Spruik means to promote a thing or idea to another person, usually informally.
- What part of speech is spruik?
- Spruik is a verb.
- How do you pronounce spruik?
- Spruik is pronounced /spɹuːk/.
- What is the past tense of spruik?
- The past tense of spruik is spruiked.
Words near spruik in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spruik (page history and authors). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-spruik.wav.
Cite this entry: “spruik.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spruik. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.