different between pure vs spruce

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English pure, pur, from Old French pur, from Latin p?rus (“clean, free from dirt or filth, unmixed, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *pewH- (“to cleanse, purify”). Displaced native Middle English lutter (“pure, clear, sincere”) (from Old English hl?tor, hluttor), Middle English skere (“pure, sheer, clear”) (from Old English sc?re and Old Norse sk?r), Middle English schir (“clear, pure”) (from Old English sc?r), Middle English smete, smeate (“pure, refined”) (from Old English sm?te; compare Old English m?re (“pure”)).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pj??/, /?pj??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?pj??/, /?pj??/
• (cure-fir merger, rhotic) IPA^(key): /?pj?/
• (cure-fir merger, non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /?pj??/
• (US)
• Rhymes: -??(r), -??(?)

Adjective

pure (comparative purer or more pure, superlative purest or most pure)

1. Free of flaws or imperfections; unsullied.
3. Free of foreign material or pollutants.
   • 1725, Isaac Watts, Logick, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard

     A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy.

4. Free of immoral behavior or qualities; clean.
   • c. 1530, William Tyndale (translator), Bible, 1 Timothy, 5:22,

     Laye hondes sodely^[suddenly] on no man nether be partaker of other mes^[men's] synnes: kepe thy silfe pure.

5. Mere; that and that only.

   That idea is pure madness!

6. (of a branch of science) Done for its own sake instead of serving another branch of science.
7. (phonetics) Of a single, simple sound or tone; said of some vowels and the unaspirated consonants.
8. (of sound) Without harmonics or overtones; not harsh or discordant.

Synonyms

• (free of flaws): see Thesaurus:pure
• (free of foreign material): see Thesaurus:raw
• (free of immoral behavior): innocent

Antonyms

• (free of flaws): dirty, flawed, impure
• (free of foreign material): contaminated, impure
• (free of immoral behavior): corrupt, guilty, sinful
• (done for its own sake): applied

Derived terms

• pure finder
• as pure as the driven snow

Related terms

• purification
• purify
• purity
• puritan
• puritanism
• purist
• purism

Translations

Adverb

pure (not comparable)

1. (Liverpudlian, Scotland) to a great extent or degree; extremely; exceedingly.

   You’re pure busy.

   • 1996, Trainspotting (film)

     I just get pure shy with the interview cats.

Translations

Verb

pure (third-person singular simple present pures, present participle puring, simple past and past participle pured)

1. (golf) to hit (the ball) completely cleanly and accurately

   Tiger Woods pured his first drive straight down the middle of the fairway.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To cleanse; to refine.

Noun

pure (countable and uncountable, plural pures)

1. One who, or that which, is pure.
   • 1845, The Lancet, page 187:

     ... the establishment of an inferior College, and the consequent connexion of the many thousands of British practitioners in medicine and surgery with a subordinate institution, and one that should be subservient to the government of the pures.

   • c. 1870, D. K. Gavan, Rocky Road to Dublin:

     Took a drop of the pure, to keep my spirits from sinking, […]

   • 1998, Christopher Leigh Connery, The Empire of the Text: Writing and Authority in Early Imperial China, Rowman & Littlefield (?ISBN), page 30:

     All interpretive frames will impose their categories on the object of historical analysis, and I am not proposing that this narrative of the "pures"; be rejected in favor of some phantasmatic framework that claims to derive more purely from the sources themselves. I will show in chapter 3 that, since the "pures" possibly did not even exist […]

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pj??/
• Rhymes: -??(r)
• (US) IPA^(key): /pj??/

Noun

pure (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of puer (“dung (e.g. of dogs)”)
   • 1851, H. Mayhew, London Labour and the London poor, vII. 142/1:

     […] Dogs'-dung is called ‘Pure’, from its cleansing and purifying properties.

   • 2001, Wendy Lawton, The Tinker's Daughter, ch. 8:

     Mary smelled the rancid odor of the tannery on the right side of the road. […]

     "What is that, Mary?" Jake asked.

     "'Tis a bag for collecting pure. That is going to be your job, Jake. You are to collect pure."

     "Pure? What is pure?"

     "Pure is another word for dung," Mary answered.

   • 2013, Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam, p. 28:

     […] surely there was something better for him than chasing the pure (footnote: A term, technically speaking, for dog muck, much prized by the tanneries.) […]

Further reading

• pure in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• pure in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Peru, Pre-U, Prue, Pu'er, Rupe, pu'er, puer, re-up, reup

Danish

Etymology 1

From Latin p?re, the adverb of p?rus (“clean, pure”); or the definite form of pur (“pure”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pu?r?/, [?p?u???]

Adjective

pure

1. complete
2. (adverbial) completely

Inflection

Etymology 2

From French purée (“puree”).

Alternative forms

• puré

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pyre/, [p?y??æ]

Noun

pure c (singular definite pureen, plural indefinite pureer)

1. puree

Inflection

Etymology 3

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pu?r?/, [?p?u???]

Adjective

pure

1. definite of pur
2. plural of pur

Esperanto

Adverb

pure

1. purely

Finnish

Verb

pure

1. inflection of purra:
   1. indicative present connegative
   2. second-person singular imperative present/present connegative

Anagrams

• Peru, peru

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /py?/
• Homophones: pur, purs, pures
• Rhymes: -y?

Adjective

pure

1. feminine singular of pur

Anagrams

• peur
• puer
• repu
• rupe, rupé

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

pure

1. inflection of pur:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pu.re/
• Rhymes: -ure

Etymology 1

Adjective

pure

1. feminine plural of puro

Etymology 2

From Latin p?r?, the adverb of p?rus.

Adverb

pure

1. too, also, as well

   Synonym: anche

2. well, surely
3. please, by all means
4. if you like; if you want (etc.)

Conjunction

pure

1. even though, even if, although
2. nevertheless

References

Anagrams

• Perù
• prue
• rupe

Latin

Etymology 1

From p?rus (“clean; pure”) and -e (“-ly, -ily”).

Adverb

p?r? (comparative p?rius, superlative p?rissim?)

1. clearly, brightly, cleanly
2. correctly, faultlessly, perfectly, purely

   Loqui pure.

   To speak correctly.

Synonyms

• (correctly): ?mend?t?

Etymology 2

Noun

p?re

1. ablative singular of p?s

References

• pure in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• pure in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book?^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.

Anagrams

• puer, r?pe

Middle English

Alternative forms

• pur, puyr, pore, poure, peure, pu?r, puir, puire, puyre

Etymology

From Old French pur, from Latin p?rus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /piu?r/

Adjective

pure (comparative purer, superlative purest)

1. pure, unadulterated, undiluted, untarnished
2. entire, total, all
3. perfect, wonderful, unflawed
4. morally clean, pure, or upstanding
5. chaste
6. true, real, genuine, not counterfeit
7. clear, obvious, simple

Descendants

• Scots: puir, pure
• English: pure
• ? Cornish: pur

References

• “p?r(e, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-02.

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

pure m (definite singular pureen, indefinite plural pureer, definite plural pureene)

1. alternative spelling of puré

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p??re?/ (example of pronunciation)

Noun

pure m (definite singular pureen, indefinite plural purear, definite plural pureane)

1. alternative spelling of puré

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²p??.r?/ (example of pronunciation)

Adjective

pure

1. definite singular of pur
2. plural of pur

Rapa Nui

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *pule.

Noun

pure

1. cowrie

Swedish

Adjective

pure

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of pur.

Anagrams

• Peru

English

Etymology

From Middle English Spruce, an alteration of Pruce (“Prussia”), from Medieval Latin, from a Baltic language, probably Old Prussian; for more, see Prussia. Spruce, spruse (1412), and Sprws (1378) were terms for commodities brought to England by Hanseatic merchants (beer, wood, leather). The tree with this name was also believed to have been native to Prussia. The adjective and verb senses ("trim, neat" and "to make trim, neat") are attested from 1594, and originate with spruce leather (1466), which was used to make a popular style of jerkins in the 1400s that was considered smart-looking.

Pronunciation

• enPR: spro?os, (US) IPA^(key): /sp?u?s/
• Rhymes: -u?s

Noun

spruce (countable and uncountable, plural spruces or spruce)

1. Any of various large coniferous evergreen trees or shrubs from the genus Picea, found in northern temperate and boreal regions; originally and more fully spruce fir.
2. (uncountable) The wood of a spruce.
3. (used attributively) Made of the wood of the spruce.

4. (obsolete) Prussian leather; pruce.

Derived terms

• black spruce (Picea mariana)
• blue spruce (Picea pungens)
• dark-bark spruce (Picea jezoensis)
• Engelmann's spruce (Picea engelmannii)
• European spruce (Picea abies)
• Koyama's spruce (Picea koyamae)
• Norway spruce (Picea abies)
• red spruce (Picea rubens)
• Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis)
• white spruce (Picea glauca)

Translations

See also

• Spruce on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Picea on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

Adjective

spruce (comparative sprucer, superlative sprucest)

1. (comparable) Smart, trim, and elegant in appearance; fastidious (said of a person).
   • 1919, William Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 31

     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.

   • 2012, The Economist, 13th Oct 2012, Plessey returns: Chips with everything

     The two clean rooms, where chips are made, are sprucer than a hospital theatre.

Translations

Verb

spruce (third-person singular simple present spruces, present participle sprucing, simple past and past participle spruced)

1. (usually with up) To arrange neatly; tidy up.
2. (transitive, intransitive, usually with up) To make oneself spruce (neat and elegant in appearance).
3. To tease. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• spruce up

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “spruce”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• cusper, recups