Verb (used with object) : Spruce up the children before the company comes. From Dictionary.com.
Cleanliness and spruceness are the rule among the Quincy Market men and stall-keepers. From Wordnik.com. [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866] Reference
A spruceness of dress is also very proper and becoming at your age; as the negligence of it implies an indifference about pleasing, which does not become a young fellow. From Wordnik.com. [Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman] Reference
He had arrived at Lucinda, had charmed “Little Jinny” with his manly presence and spruceness and the amount of his personal property, supplemented by the display and free bestowal of. From Wordnik.com. [The Confessions of a Beachcomber] Reference
His bed at the three feathers was hard, the pillow lumpy, the ale insipid, the food ill-prepared, the service less than prompt, the taproom noisy, and the whole place lacking something in spruceness even though it was passably clean. From Wordnik.com. [Slightly Married]
There was a change also, David did not very well know of what nature, about the exterior of this landed proprietor — an improvement in the shape of his garments, a spruceness in the air with which they were put on, that were both novelties. From Wordnik.com. [The Heart of Mid-Lothian] Reference
The modest spruceness, the sedateness and tidiness of his earlier years, was replaced by a careless swagger and slovenliness quite insufferable; he rolled from side to side as he walked, lolled in easy-chairs, put his elbows on the table, stretched and yawned, and behaved rudely to his aunt and the servants. From Wordnik.com. [A Sportsman's Sketches] Reference
A new, a surprising spruceness had laid hold of him. From Wordnik.com. [Star-Dust] Reference
That does not depend on the spruceness, but on character. From Wordnik.com. [Fruits of Culture] Reference
Your best bet, though, for maximum spruceness, is to completely wipe the device and start anew. From Wordnik.com. [Pocket Gamer | www.pocketgamer.co.uk | Latest additions] Reference
Neat he was to spruceness, and while of no more than medium height he had the shoulders of an acrobat. From Wordnik.com. [Tales of Chinatown] Reference
Some of the gentlemen celebrated the occasion by an unusual spruceness of attire, and others by being sober enough to attend to business. From Wordnik.com. [History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III)] Reference
A gray flannel shirt, dark trousers, carpet slippers, an old dressing-gown … This morning the shipowner had none of his usual spruceness. From Wordnik.com. [Death of a Harbormaster]
The men's words, uttered on one side in irritated languor and on the other with empty spruceness, had suddenly lifted her to the threshold of life. From Wordnik.com. [The Judge] Reference
In its respectable regularity, its order and spruceness, it gave an impression of sardonic horror; for never can the search for love have been so systematised and ordered. From Wordnik.com. [The Trembling of a Leaf Little Stories of the South Sea Islands] Reference
Philip reddened, feeling his own spruceness an intolerable reproach; for of late he had begun to pay some attention to his toilet, and he had come out from England with a pretty selection of ties. From Wordnik.com. [Of Human Bondage] Reference
Raemaekers 'that it depicts the officer who has made the mistake as exhibiting the spruceness of a Prussian, and the officer who has found out the mistake as having the comparatively battered look of an old. From Wordnik.com. [Raemaekers' Cartoons With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers] Reference
There was no spruceness of biweekly mowing about the lawn, no ambitious spick-and-spanness about the old, white, wooden, green-blinded cottage itself, but rather a restful mossiness of ancient respectability. From Wordnik.com. [The Faith Doctor A Story of New York] Reference
In the meantime all that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and that miserable slavery a kingdom, and such too as they would not change their tyranny for Phalaris 'or Dionysius' empire. From Wordnik.com. [The Praise of Folly] Reference
There was a change also, David did not very well know of what nature, about the exterior of this landed proprietor --- an improvement in the shape of his garments, a spruceness in the air with which they were put on, that were both novelties. From Wordnik.com. [The Heart of Mid-Lothian] Reference
And for greater spruceness there were some jaunty touches; gray spats, a narrow black ribbon across the gray waistcoat to the eye-glasses in a pocket, a fleck of color from a button in the lapel of the black coat, labeling him the descendant of patriot warriors. From Wordnik.com. [The Turmoil] Reference
He reached home, washed off the cares of the day and the reek of black gunpowder together in a warm bath, dressed himself with more than ordinary spruceness, and was descending the stair on his way to Bias's garden, when at the foot of them he was amazed to find Mrs Bowldler, seated and rocking herself to and fro with her apron cast over her head. From Wordnik.com. [Hocken and Hunken] Reference
A model of cleanliness and spruceness he was indifferent. From Wordnik.com. [Dope] Reference
In the meantime all that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and that miserable slavery a kingdom, and such too as they would not change their tyranny for Phalaris’ or Dionysius’ empire. From Wordnik.com. [In Praise of Folly] Reference
"We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that, as a general rule, the process of courtship tends to the spruceness, and even foppery, of the individual engaged in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily proved somewhere. From Wordnik.com. [My Novel — Complete] Reference
Our persons lost their spruceness too. From Wordnik.com. [The Seventh Manchesters July 1916 to March 1919] Reference
Unseeming spruceness th 'old man discommends. From Wordnik.com. [The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb] Reference
Emerging into West Street, amid the solicitations of hackmen, the tinkling jog-trot of the most ignoble horse-cars you have seen since leaving home, the dry dust blowing into your eyes, the gaping black holes of broken pavements, the unspeakable filth, the line of red brick buildings prematurely decrepit, the sagging multitude of telegraph wires, the clumsy electric lights depending before the beer saloon and the groggery, the curious confusion of spruceness and squalor in the aspect of these latter, which also seem legionconfronting all this for the first time in three years, say, you think with wonder of your disappointment at not finding the Tuileries Gardens a mass of flowers, and with a blush of the times you have told Frenchmen that New York was very much like Paris. From Wordnik.com. [New York After Paris] Reference
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