spruce-up
noun
an act of cleaning up, refurbishing, renovating, or the like.
spruce-up
American
[sproos-uhp]
/ ˈsprusˌʌp /
noun
spruce up
British
verb
spruce up
Idioms
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:
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
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 books are undergoing a spruce-up this spring.
From Slate ● Apr. 4, 2016
A garden spruce-up, sponsored by Con Edison, will take place on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; free registration is requested.
From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2014
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
And it’s easy, as many quickly did, to write off this push to spruce up and fill up America’s most notorious prison-turned-national park as just bloviating or distraction.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 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.
