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Spruce   /sprus/   Listen
noun
Spruce  n.  
1.
(Bot.) Any coniferous tree of the genus Picea, as the Norway spruce (Picea excelsa), and the white and black spruces of America (Picea alba and Picea 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."
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. A kind of beer which is tinctured or flavored with spruce, either by means of the extract or by decoction.
Spruce grouse. (Zool.) Same as Spruce partridge, below.
Spruce leather. See Spruce, n., 3.
Spruce partridge (Zool.), a handsome American grouse (Dendragapus Canadensis) found in Canada and the Northern United States; called also Canada grouse.



verb
Spruce  v. t.  (past & past part. spruced; pres. part. sprucing)  To dress with affected neatness; to trim; to make spruce; often used with up; as, to spruce up the house for Company.



Spruce  v. i.  To dress one's self with affected neatness; as, to spruce up.



adjective
Spruce  adj.  (compar. sprucer; superl. sprucest)  
1.
Neat, without elegance or dignity; smart; trim; formerly applied to things with a serious meaning; now chiefly applied to persons. "Neat and spruce array."
2.
Sprightly; dashing. (Obs.) "Now, my spruce companions." "He is so spruce that he can never be genteel."
Synonyms: Finical; neat; trim. See Finical.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spruce" Quotes from Famous Books



... juniper, Juniperus osteosperma (Torr.) Little. More sheltered areas along the North Rim and in most of the canyons support scattered small stands of Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii (Merb.) Franco. These are the "spruce trees" of Spruce Tree Canyon. An occasional ponderosa pine, Pinus ponderosa Laws., represents a vestige of more montane species of plants and animals in the Park. The dusky grouse, Dendragapus obscurus (Say), occurs along the North Rim in oak-chaparral, and ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson

... Anne, for directly in front of them was a wigwam, so cunningly built in behind a growth of small spruce trees that unless one knew of its whereabouts it might be easily passed by. The Indian girl laughed at Anne's exclamation, and nodded at her ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis

... garnished with bay windows—observe its heavy jaws of areas, its hard, close mouth of a door; its dark, deep sunken eyes of windows peering out from the heavy brow of dark stone coping that supports the slate hat in question: what a contrast to the spruce mock gentility of its neighbour, with a stand-up collar of white steps, a varnished face, and a light, jaunty, yet stiff air, like a city apprentice in his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various

... younger orchard which is exposed to the full sweep of the west wind not a catkin survived on any of the 66 varieties in that orchard. In the other older orchard which is protected on the west and north by buildings and spruce trees, sufficient catkins survived on three varieties to provide for proper pollination. In discussing the effects of winter injury on the different varieties it will be necessary to make a distinction between the two orchards. Orchard 6 is the partially protected ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... our middle West, where they encounter education too suddenly, and it would take three generations of him to speak clean English. But with all his polysyllabic wallowing, he showed himself keen-minded, pat with authorities, a spruce young graduate among these dingy Rocky Mountain campaigners. They had fought and thirsted and frozen; the books that he knew were not written when they went to school; and so far as war is to be mastered on paper, his equipment was full and polished while ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister


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