Spruce. The exploits of the Teutonic Knights against the Pruzzi, the stubborn heathen of Lithuania, made Prussia to be very familiar on the lips of men in the later Middle Ages (see Weigand, s. v. Preuszen). This Prussia, Sprutia very often in medieval Latin, appears now as ‘Pruce’ (so in Chaucer), and now as ‘Spruce’ (see Skeat’s Dictionary); and in this latter form it survives in our spruce fir, which was brought from Northern Europe, in spruce beer, and in spruce, more vaguely applied to a certain neatness and smartness of outward appearance; one which it is implied had reached us from those quarters.
They were apparelled after the fashion of Prussia or Spruce.—Hall, Chronicle, Henry VIII.
Norway in that age, the sprucest of the three kingdoms of Scandia, and best tricked up with shipping, sent her fleet of tall soldiers to Syria.—Fuller, Holy War, b. v. c. 22.
Squander. The examples which follow will show that ‘to squander’ had once, if not a different, yet a much wider use than it now, at least in our classical English, retains. In the northern dialects it is still used as equivalent to ‘disperse.’
He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; ... he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad.—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. 3.
The minister is not to come into the pulpit, as a fencer upon the stage, to make a fair flourish against sin, but rather as a captain into the field, to bend his forces specially against the strongest troops of the enemy, and to squander and break through the thickest ranks.—Sanderson, Sermon 2, ad Clerum.
They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
They chase and squander the huge Belgian fleet.
Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 67.
Staple. A curious change has come over this word. We should now say, Cotton is the great ‘staple,’ that is, the established merchandize, of Manchester; our ancestors would have reversed this and said, Manchester is the great ‘staple,’ or established mart, of cotton. We make the goods prepared or sold the ‘staple’ of the place; they made the place the ‘staple’ of the goods. See Cowell, The Interpreter, s. v.