Noun use of verb phrase spruce up
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
You probably don’t want to put a new coat of paint on your exterior walls in February, but winter is an excellent time for interior painting and giving your rooms a quick spruce-up.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 5, 2022
The central London building, which had suffered nine direct hits during World War Two, was in need of a spruce-up.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2015
From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; until 7 p.m. on Saturdays; open until 8 p.m. the first Friday of every month; ; closed this Friday for the annual spruce-up.
From New York Times ● Sep. 11, 2014
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
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
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
But it’s time, and it’s perfect that their neighbors down the road have decided to be the ones to spruce up the place.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
“I want to spruce up our apartment, make it feel more like home. But on a tiny budget. I have a list of ideas.”
From "A Soft Place to Land" by Janae Marks
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
