Also spruce-fir. [SPRUCE sb.]
1. A distinct species of fir (Pinus or Abies) comprising several clearly marked varieties (cf. SPRUCE sb. 4); one or other of these varieties.
1731. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Abies, The Common Firr, or Pitch Tree; sometimes called, The Norway or Spruce Firr.
1799. [A. Young], Agric. Lincoln., 214. The spruce fir also grows well and large.
1812. J. Smyth, Pract. of Customs (1821), 85. This essence is extracted from the small twigs or sprouts of the black and white Spruce Fir.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot., 109. The whole will be shaped like a cone or pyramid, as in the Spruce Fir.
2. A tree belonging to this species.
1768. Pennant, Brit. Zool., II. 262. The last spring we discovered the nest of this bird in a spruce fir.
1774. Gray, Corr. (1843), 173. There you may see larches, Weymouth pines, and spruce firs that have risen by magic.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 317. Those remarkable rows of spruce-firs which line some of the avenues at Meudon.
1896. Lloyd’s Nat. Hist., 58. The ordinary Crossbill devours the seeds of the larch and spruce-firs.
