spruce

Plural: spruce, spruces

Noun

light soft moderately strong wood of spruce trees; used especially for timbers and millwork
any coniferous tree of the genus Picea
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.
The wood of a spruce.
Made of the wood of the spruce.
Prussian leather; pruce.

Verb

Verb Forms: spruced, sprucing, spruces

To make something or oneself neat and trim.
make neat, smart, or trim
- "Spruce up your house for Spring"
dress and groom with particular care, as for a special occasion
- "He spruced up for the party"
To arrange neatly; tidy up.
To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
To tease.

Adjective Satellite

marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners

Adj

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

Adjective

Neat, clean, and trim in appearance.

Examples

He tried to spruce up his low-scoring board with a clever bonus word.
Her Scrabble strategy was always spruce, with no wasted moves.
That spruce table is beautiful!

Origin / Etymology

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.

Synonyms

dapper, dashing, jaunty, natty, raffish, rakish, slick up, smarten up, snappy, spiff up, spiffy, spruce up, titivate, tittivate, pulchritudinous

Scrabble Score: 10

spruce: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
spruce: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
spruce: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 13

spruce: valid Words With Friends Word