spruce-up

[ sproos-uhp ]

noun
  1. an act of cleaning up, refurbishing, renovating, or the like.

Origin of spruce-up

1
Noun use of verb phrase spruce up

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use spruce-up in a sentence

  • A decade ago, they decided for a holiday botox spruce-up mit smooth-out.

    The Deadliest Botox Has Arrived | Kent Sepkowitz | October 18, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • The lake appeared to be inclosed on three sides by amphitheatric mountains, black with spruce up to the gray walls of rock.

  • Well, you want ter kind of spruce up a bit before you do that, for you don't look very fine now, Carrots.

    Teddy and Carrots | James Otis
  • The canvas men would hurry to the “lot” to put up the tents while we remained behind to spruce up for the parade.

    The Autobiography of a Clown | Isaac Frederick Marcosson
  • The canvas men would hurry to the "lot" to put up the tents while we remained behind to spruce up for the parade.

  • I was going to tell you about the way Fessor laughed when I tried to spruce up and preen my feathers.

    The Story of Scraggles | George Wharton James

British Dictionary definitions for spruce up

spruce up

verb
  1. (adverb) to make (oneself, a person, or thing) smart and neat

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with spruce-up

spruce-up

Make neat and trim, as in She spruced up the chairs with new cushions. This idiom originated in the late 1500s as simply spruce but had acquired up by 1676.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.