It adds a sprucer air to a sunday dress; casts a look of disdain from a bundle of rags; it boasts the honor of a family, while poverty unites a sole and upper-leather with a bandage of shop-thread.
"An History of Birmingham (1783)"
William Hutton
A smart, green veranda, scarcely finished, ran along the low portico, and formed the termination to two thin rows of meagre and dwarfish sycamores, which did duty for an avenue, and were bounded, on the roadside, by a spruce white gate, and a sprucer lodge, so moderate in its dimensions, that it would scarcely have boiled a turnip: if a rat had got into it, he might have run away with it.
"Pelham, Complete"
Edward Bulwer-Lytton Last Updated: March 16, 2009
There's not a man in Honey Fair as likes to go sprucer on a Sunday than Brumm.
"Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles"
Mrs. Henry Wood