Nearby Words
adjective
1.
trim in dress or appearance; neat; smart; dapper.
verb (used with object)
2.
to make spruce or smart (often followed by up): Spruce up the children before the company comes.
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Sprucely
is always a great word to know.
So is lollapalooza. Does it mean:
| an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
verb (used without object)
3.
to make oneself spruce (usually followed by up).
Origin:
1580–90; obsolete spruce jerkin orig., jerkin made of spruce leather, i.e., leather imported from Prussia (see spruce1), hence fine, smart, etc.
1580–90; obsolete spruce jerkin orig., jerkin made of spruce leather, i.e., leather imported from Prussia (see spruce1), hence fine, smart, etc.
Related forms
spruce·ly, adverb
spruce·ness, noun
un·spruced, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To sprucely
Collins
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History
spruce
1594, from the adj. meaning "to make trim or neat," from spruce leather (1466, see spruce (n.)), which was used to make a popular style of jerkins in the 1400s that was considered smart-looking.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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