Prim vs Spruce - What's the difference?
prim | spruce |
prudish, straight-laced
formal; precise; affectedly neat or nice
(dated) To make affectedly precise or proper.
(dated) To dress or act smartly.
Any of various large coniferous evergreen trees from the genus Picea , found in northern temperate and boreal regions; originally and more fully spruce fir.
(uncountable) The wood of a spruce.
(used attributively) Made of the wood of the spruce.
(obsolete) Prussia leather; pruce.
* E. Phillips
(comparable) Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
* 1919 ,
* 2012 , The Economist, 13th Oct 2012,
To arrange neatly; tidy up.
) To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
To tease.
As nouns the difference between prim and spruce
is that prim is prime (the first note or tone of a musical scale) while spruce is (obsolete) prussia.prim
English
Etymology 1
(etyl) prim, prin, from (etyl) (lena) .Adjective
(primmer)- prim''' regularity; a '''prim person
- (Jonathan Swift)
Usage notes
Often used in the collocation “prim and proper”.Derived terms
* prim and proper * prissyVerb
Etymology 2
See privet.spruce
English
Noun
(en-noun)- That spruce table is beautiful!
- Spruce , a sort of leather corruptly so called for Prussia leather.
See also
* (Spruce) * (Picea)Adjective
(er)- He had great neatness of person, and he continued to wear his spruce black coat and his bowler hat, always a little too small for him, in a dapper, jaunty manner.
Plessey returns: Chips with everything
- The two clean rooms, where chips are made, are sprucer than a hospital theatre.