spruce
part of speech
noun (a spruce, spruces; spruce — uncountable for the wood); adjective (spruce, sprucer, sprucest); verb (spruce up, spruces up, spruced up, sprucing up)
meaning for a pupil
1) A spruce is a tall evergreen tree with short needles and hanging cones; it often grows in cold places. tree →
2) Spruce is the light wood of this tree. tree →
3) (adjective) Spruce means neat, clean and smart in appearance. tree →
4) To spruce up something or someone is to make them look neater and smarter. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons spruce is a conifer, a tree that keeps its needles in winter; spruces are often used as Christmas trees and for paper and guitars. In everyday life you spruce up a room or yourself before visitors. Phrases: a spruce tree, spruce forest, spruce up, looking spruce.
examples
- A spruce keeps its needles all winter. tree →
- The forest was full of tall spruces. tree →
- We bought a spruce for our Christmas tree. tree →
- Let's spruce up the classroom before parents' evening. tree →
- Dad looked very spruce in his new suit. tree →
- The violin was made of spruce. tree →
- She spruced herself up for the party. tree →
- And ‘Quack, quack, quack.’ Drakestail is off again, singing and spruce as before. tree →
note
The tree is countable (two spruces); the wood is uncountable. Spruce and pine and fir are all conifers: spruce needles are short and sharp and grow singly; pine needles grow in bunches. The adjective is a bit old-fashioned; «spruce up» is very common.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «spruce» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.