Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Scot./Irish) a lively young man.

1786		Burns ‘Address to the Devil’ in Poetical Works (1871) 28: An’ aft your moss-traversing Spunkies / Decoy the wight that late an’ drunk is: / The bleezan, curst, mischievous monkies / Delude his eyes, / Till in some miry slough he sunk is.
1806		J. Nicol Poems I 148: An’ frae his bow, the shafts, fu’ snack, Pierc’d monie a spunkie’s liver .
1844		R. Huddleston ‘Doddery Willowaim’ Collection of Poems and Songs 19: Sae nice, sae han’some, blythe, an’ young, / A vera spunkie fu’ o’ fun.
1901		G. Douglas House with Green Shutters 182: Logan [...] thought him a hardy young spunkie.