spruce up

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

to make something look more attractive or tidy

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Làm cho thứ gì đó trở nên hấp dẫn hoặc ngăn nắp hơn

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to make like a spruce tree
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She decided to spruce up her apartment with new furniture

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “spruce up” mean?

to make something look more attractive or tidy Literally: to make like a spruce tree

Is “spruce up” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.