Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. courageous, brave, plucky; usu. of young people and applied equally to either gender; also as adv.; thus spunkiness n.

1786		Burns ‘Earnest Cry and Prayer’ in Poetical Works (1871) 15: Erskine, a spunkie norland billie; / True Campbells, Frederick an’ Ilay [...] Arouse my boys! exert your mettle.
1796		T.G. Fessenden ‘Rustic Revel’ Poems (1804) 23: Ralph Rattle, spunky fellow, / Raking round till he is mellow, / Rudely muttering and swearing.
1802		R. Anderson ‘The Impatient Lassie’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 19: How neyce the spunky fire it burns.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 24: Poor GEORGY was done up in no time at all, / And his spunkiest backers were forc’d to sing small.
1825		J. Neal Brother Jonathan II 35: Quite a spunky chap.
1833		C.A. Davis Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 128: He went at it agin as spunky as ever.
1839		T. Moore in Morn. Chron. 29 May 3: Known for his spunky speculations / In buying up dead reputations.
1840		‘May Day Morning’ in Capt. Morris’s Songs in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 221: It was May day in the morning so bright, / When I got up so bright and so spunky.
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 141: If he isn’t clear grit-ginger to the back-bone [...] and spunky as a bull dog, it’s a pity, that’s all.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms.
1853		Woodville Courier (MS) 1 Feb. 1/2: Dat am de spunky nigger, / Dat had dem windy fights, / Wheneber he’s contending / For his own ‘Suddern Rights’.
1862		letter in Silber & Sievens Yankee Correspondence (1996) 62: He is faithful & honest as the sun, smart, spunky, yet respectful & quiet.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 92: He was hopeful, spunky, cautious, and well informed.
1884		Randiana 62: At each thrust I gave her ladyship she responded with a promptitude, which showed how fresh and spunky her vigorous constitution was.
1887		Lantern (N.O.) 15 Oct. 5: Andy Bohne is a well-knit and spunky little chap, and built from the ground up.
1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 140: But the Yanky was spunky – with Christian spunkiness.
1898		F.P. Dunne in B.C. Schaaf Mr Dooley’s Chicago (1977) 287: She do have spunk. Oh, ’tis she’s th’ spunky wan.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Nov. 24/2: He is, scientifically, not a top-notcher – he’s merely a good, strong, spunky rough ’un, and there are plenty of his sort there.
1905		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy Abroad 355: ‘I draw the line on Belgian hares [...] by gosh,’ said I, just like that, bristling up to dad real spunky.
1916		P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 307: He’s brainy and spunky and, by thunder, I’m for him.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 21: Her smile was a spunky tired one.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 565: That was a mighty spunky thing to do.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 44: Gloria was a very spunky girl.
1944		R.L. Bellem ‘Focus on Death’ Hollywood Detective Jan. 🌐 Diminutive as a Dresden doll, and spunkier than a regiment of Commandos.
1950		J.T. Farrell ‘Summer Tryout’ Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 33: She seemed very fresh and young and spunky.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 100: Spunky, able to hold her own, Georgia greeted him impudently.
1967		(con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 44: The spunky Limey admiral, Tom Phillips.
1969		P. Theroux Murder in Mount Holly (1999) 43: Mr Gibbon said that he liked spunky women and asked Herbie if his mother was spunky.
1982		G. Tate ‘Wynton Marsalis’ Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 46: Much less the cocky wunderkind he seemed with Art Blakey – where his spunky, spontaneous replications of Freddie Hubbard and especially Lee Morgan evoked welcome nostalgia.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 476: Inez Soto was a spunky hard-luck girl.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 281: Reprise, currently enjoying a good run of form with a spunky roster of modern rock artists.
2007		M. Rowson Stuff 31: I took an instant dislike to the vision of blond-haired, freckle-faced cutesy spunky childhood it peddled.
2011		Guardian Mag. 30 Apr. 9/3: That spunky young bin man.

2. (US) aroused, angry; also as adv.

1833		C.A. Davis Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 72: He was as spunky as thunder; and when a Quaker gits his dander up, it’s like a norwester.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 294: She got up and shook her knittin’ at him quite spunky.
1843		Jeffersonian Republican (Stroudsburg, PA) 12 Oct. 3/1: My hoss had his pluck so riz by the flour barls I guved him, and was so oil-fired spunky, that I thought I’d stop to this town [...] to kepe his dandir down.
1846		Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects (1848) 36: A very spunky and wrathy individual.
1850		W.K. Northall Life and Recollections of Yankee Hill 125: Well, if you’re mind to get spunky, I guess I can git a gal that will let me see her hum.
1865		M.L. Byrn Adventures of Fudge Fumble 38: She was a little ‘spunky’.
1883		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 14: When a boy’s Pa tells him to never you mind, and looks spunky [...] a boy wants to go right away.
1910		B.L. Bowen ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 449: spunky, adj. Irritable; mettlesome.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 216: spunky, irritable. ‘If I had a kid as spunky as that I’d whip him.’.

3. pertaining to semen.

1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) III 568: No woman ever let me pull her about and look at her cunt, whether it was clean or spunky, more freely than she did.
1892		‘Lais Lovecock’ Bagnio Misc. 8: A black-haired, rosy-cheeked Adonis called [...] Spunky Tom, because he boasted he could bring as much again as any of them.
c.1904		A. Crowley Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 19: A pretty spunky, turdy, mess!
c.1950		Nunnery versus Fuckery 44: He thrust the slim neck of the vase into her spunky twat.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 24: The toilet [...] has a good inch ay stagnant, spunky urine covering the flair.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 288: It’s like, all uv ar linked and bonded together through this [sexual] force, this cement . . . liker spunky Artadite it is.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 147: Everyone denied talking about it, like everyone denied talking about spunky cunts.

4. (US) of women, attractive, fashionable.

1908

Dly Press (Newport News, VA) 29 Apr. 5/4: ‘If you can’t [...] get in the game and fall in l.ine with what the spunky women are wearing, and look like something and somebody, why [etc].

5. as a term of address.

1987

(con. 1967) E. Spencer Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 78: And clean up the dog shit before you go, spunky.

6. (Aus.) sexy.

1973		Ribald (Sydney) #45 23: TWO HORNY guys seek spunky chicks – send frank photo.
1979		Lette & Carey Puberty Blues 5: Sue and I checked out the guys. They were spunkier at North Cronulla.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 7: Looking up the leather mini of the spunky little hornbag.
1998		Bug (Aus.) 28 Jan. 🌐 I mean we’ve all done it; told our mates we rooted the spunky barmaid down the Rose and the Thorn.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] [of a man] The spunky bass player came up and sat at my table.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 136: There are so many spunky-looking ladies who work in the prison service and are prepared to serve any bloke.
2009		P. Temple Truth 242: They went there early one morning to evict squatters[...] sleepy, spunky women and dirty-haired men holding at least two guitars.

7. of an object, smart and showy.

1991

P. Carey Tax Inspector (1992) 20: A Commodore S.S. [car] with spunky alloy wheels in the shape of a spinning sun.