How to pronounce spruce in American English

IPA /sprus/ Syllables 1 · sproos Stress 1st syllable

SPROOS

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Americans pronounce spruce as SPROOS (/sprus/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The cool breeze blew through the spruce trees".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "spruce".

1 syllable, 5 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

p/p/

Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.

r/r/

Curl or bunch your tongue without letting the tip touch the roof of your mouth. Brace the sides of your tongue against your upper back teeth, and round your lips slightly.

oo/u/

Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "spruce" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"The cool breeze blew through the spruce trees."

dhuh KOOL BREEZ BLOO throo dhuh SPROOS TREEZ

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "spruce" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "SPROOS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.