adv. [f. SPRUCE a. + -LY2.] In a spruce manner; smartly, trimly, neatly.

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1598.  Marston, Pygmal., Sat., iii. Under that fayre Ruffe so sprucely set Appeares a fall, a falling-band forsooth.

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1626.  T. H[awkins], Caussin’s Holy Crt., 186. We see men … who wast all their tyme … in striuing to haue their stockings sprucely put on.

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1673.  E. Brown, Trav. Germ. (1677), 179. Every Bastion is sprucely kept and covered within with green Turf.

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1806.  J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life, IV. xxxiii. As you walk forth freshly and sprucely dressed.

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1854.  Emerson, Lett. & Soc. Aims, Poet. & Imag., Wks. (Bohn), III. 160. A small, well-worn, sprucely brushed vocabulary serves him.

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