spruik

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

spruik

/spɹuːk/

Rhymes with -uːk

Where it comes from

Unknown, likely Germanic. Compare Dutch spraak (“speech”), spreek (“speak”), spreuk (“saying”), sprook (“a story, fiction, tale, or false idea”). First recorded in the late 1890s and early 1900s, suggesting a possible derivation from Afrikaans (i.e. brought back by soldiers returning from the Boer War). With the exception of a few early uses of sprook, the word's spelling has been fixed since it first entered the language. The uncommon ⟨ui⟩ digraph provides further evidence for an Afrikaans or Dutch origin.

verb spruiks · spruiking · spruiked · sprook

Australia, transitive To promote a thing or idea to another person, usually informally. There was no spruiking or showmanship, no flash shirts or ten-gallon hats.
Similar: pimp, pitch, tout, hawk

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"spruik." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/spruik. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

spruik. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/spruik

Chicago

"spruik." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/spruik.

BibTeX

@misc{spruik_2026,
  title = {spruik},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/spruik},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}