Spruce

How to spell spruce

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spruce

What does spruce mean?

1. nounAn evergreen coniferous tree with needle-like leaves and hanging cones, often used for timber and as a Christmas tree.
2. verbTo make oneself or something neater and smarter in appearance, usually with 'up'.
3. adjectiveNeat, trim, and smart in appearance.

Spruce in a sentence

• noun

  The forest was dense with tall spruce and pine.

• verb

  He wanted to spruce up the garden before the viewing.

• adjective

  He arrived looking spruce in a pressed grey suit.

• noun

  They decorated a Norway spruce in the town square.

• verb

  A fresh coat of paint will spruce up the hallway.

• adjective

  The office was kept tidy and spruce at all times.

Where does spruce come from?

Language of origin: Other

Spruce is a curious word that hides a place name inside it. In Middle English, the region of Prussia was often called Pruce or Spruce, and goods imported from there, including a particular evergreen timber, leather, and beer, were labelled 'Spruce' after their origin. By the 1500s the name of the tree itself had settled into 'spruce', a softening of 'Spruce fir', meaning the fir from Prussia. The adjective and verb senses grew from the same root: fashionable 'Spruce leather' jerkins worn by stylish men gave 'spruce' the sense of trim, neat, and smartly turned out, which then produced the phrase 'to spruce up'. The unexpected spelling, with that initial sp- and the soft -ce ending, makes more sense once you remember it began life as a disguised form of Prussia.

How the word is built

• spruce (from Pruce, an old name for Prussia, the region the timber and goods came from)