spruce up
phrasal verb
Did you know?
titivate, spruce up, smarten up, or spiff up?
Titivate, spruce, smarten, and spiff all mean "to make a person or thing neater or more attractive." Titivate often refers to making small additions or alterations in attire ("titivate the costume with sequins and other accessories"), but it can also be used figuratively (as in "titivating the script for Broadway"). Spruce up is sometimes used for cosmetic changes or renovations that give the appearance of newness ("spruce up the house with new shutters and fresh paint before trying to sell it"). Smarten up and spiff up both mean to improve in appearance often by making more neat or stylish ("the tailor smartened up the suit with minor alterations"; "he needed some time to spiff himself up for the party"). The origins of titivate are uncertain, but it may have been formed from the English words tidy and renovate.
Examples of spruce up in a Sentence
Cai Cramer, Peoplemag, 11 Apr. 2024
Players took that to its natural next step, sprucing up their style away from the field.
—Evan Webeck, The Mercury News, 23 Mar. 2024
Check out our editors' favorites for sprucing up their bathroom spaces while curbing water spillage.
—Jennifer Hussein, Allure, 4 Mar. 2024
Walnut casework spruces up the area and adds bountiful space to stash bath linens.
—Mary Cornetta, Better Homes & Gardens, 4 Mar. 2024
One place to start is by sprucing up your exterior with splashes of colors and furniture, highlighting its potential.
—Nora Colomer, Fox News, 8 Mar. 2024
Original story: In the waning hours of the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers inserted into the state budget the ability for Indianapolis to create a special taxing district to spruce up the downtown and address homelessness.
—Kayla Dwyer, The Indianapolis Star, 10 Jan. 2024
As spring finally arrives after months of cold and dreary weather, many of us are keen to spruce up our homes.
—Toni Sutton, Peoplemag, 22 Mar. 2024
And she's seen paint, sometimes pointed to as one of the cheaper ways to spruce up a space, for under market prices at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore or on Facebook Marketplace.
—The Indianapolis Star, 21 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'spruce up.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near spruce up
Cite this Entry
“Spruce up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spruce%20up. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
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