spruce-up

American

[sproos-uhp] / ˈsprusˌʌp /

noun

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

spruce up British

verb

(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

spruce up Idioms

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.

Etymology

Origin of spruce-up

Noun use of verb phrase spruce up

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

spruce-up spruce up

One former official recalls a departing prime minister being peeved there was an "office spruce-up", with walls being freshly painted for their replacement about to arrive.

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

Kirsten Conner, founder of Kirsten Conner Interior Design, agrees that seasonal decorating’s benefits go beyond an external spruce-up.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 1, 2023

When he’s going under the knife for a spruce-up face-lift, Lee insists that Scott get some face work done as well—in order to look more like the young Liberace.

From Slate ● May 24, 2013

He figured it had been about 10 years since the road had gotten such a spruce-up.

From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2012

Fresh from a multimillion-dollar spruce-up by Hirsch Bedner this past July, the Four Seasons has rightly reclaimed its crown as the best hotel in the buzzy Orchard Road shopping district.

From Time Magazine Archive

Helped into the apartment by an X Square engineer, the AI-operated Quanta X1 Pro robot uses its cameras to identify areas it could spruce up.

From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026

Whether you’re looking to spruce up weeknight dinners or wow a crowd of guests, be sure to give these embellishments a try.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026

Nagi says that the conversation motivated her to visit the boy's slum community and she offered to spruce up the locality by decorating the walls with murals.

From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2026

Barr’s challenge is to improve CarMax’s online sales experience and lower the company’s costs to acquire and spruce up used cars for sale.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026

“How about this? I’ve been at Chuck’s all morning, helping him replace the transmission in his old Plymouth Barracuda. Let me spruce up a bit, and I’ll be back down.”

From "The Parker Inheritance" by Varian Johnson

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023