spirited

spirited, high-spirited, mettlesome, spunky, fiery, peppery, gingery mean having or manifesting a high degree of vitality, spirit, and daring.

Spirited implies not only fullness of life but such signs of excellent physical, or sometimes mental, health as ardor, animation, energy, and enthusiasm; the term's implications vary widely, but it usually carries a suggestion of vigorous vitality, exaltation, or stimulation

{

his words, spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the voice— Stevenson

}

{

a spirited turn to a jaded commonplace has achieved an opening that is flawlessly organic— Lowes

}

{

the defense is spirited and extreme and nothing is given to the enemy— Sykes

}

{

shaking his head backward, somewhat after the manner of a spirited horse— George Eliot

}

High-spirited can add to spirited a strong suggestion of dashing vigor and even of a temperamental unwillingness to accept guidance and control

{

a sensibly unheroic man who is led into wild shooting frays by a high-spirited girl— Anthony Boucher

}

{

too high-spirited to be passive instruments in his hand— William Robertson

}

{

they were high-spirited, perhaps a little insolent as well as reckless— Ellis

}

Mettlesome differs little from high-spirited except in its tendency to stress fearlessness and vigor more than restiveness

{

he found himself immediately at grips with one of the watch, a mettlesome fellow who fought like a wildcat— Costain

}

{

his occasional sarcasms are no more than a high-spirited gaiety and his quarrels no more frequent or violent than might be normal in any mettlesome youngster— Edgar Johnson

}

Spunky often implies qualities similar to those suggested by high-spirited and mettlesome but it carries a stronger implication of quickness in taking fire and of an incapacity for being downed or daunted; also, the term is often applied to unlooked-for courage in persons or animals

{

she was under five feet and weighed less than ninety pounds, but he would have had an armful of spunky vitality— Thurber

}

{

one of the great subjects for biography is that spunky, crotchety, illiterate, and wonderfully gifted maker of things, Henry Ford— Gill

}

Fiery, peppery, and gingery are used as synonyms of the preceding terms when one prefers a more concrete term.

Fiery, suggesting the heat of flame or fire, implies impetuousness, passionateness, or sometimes irascibility in addition to spiritedness

{

a fiery soul, which, working out its way, fretted the pygmy body to decay— Dryden

}

{

a fiery, tortured spirit, aiming at something greater than could be conceived by anything that was bound up with the flesh— Maugham

}

{

the fiery thinker who flattened a generation with the hail of his words— Tracy

}

Peppery adds to spirited suggestions of a hotness or pungency characteristic of pepper and often distinctively connotes asperity or excitability

{

a peppery response

}

{

Master Rickey is a peppery young man. Love and war come as natural to him as bread and butter— Meredith

}

{

as he makes clear in peppery footnotes and caustic asides, he has aimed at an absolute precision of factual detail— Kazin

}

Gingery carries a heightened suggestion of a zest, spiciness, or snap associated with ginger

{

in gingery good health at 55— Newsweek

}

{

he learned the high quick gingery ways of thoroughbreds— Masefield

}

Analogous words: courageous, intrepid, bold, audacious, valiant, *brave: impetuous, *precipitate: *eager, avid, keen: passionate, enthusiastic, zealous, fervent, ardent (see corresponding nouns at PASSION)

Antonyms: spiritless