spunky adj.
1. courageous, brave, plucky; usu. of young people and applied equally to either gender; also as adv.; thus spunkiness n.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘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. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Rustic Revel’ Poems (1804) 23: Ralph Rattle, spunky fellow, / Raking round till he is mellow, / Rudely muttering and swearing. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘The Impatient Lassie’ Cumberland Ballads (1805) 19: How neyce the spunky fire it burns. | |
| 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. | |
| Brother Jonathan II 35: Quite a spunky chap. | |
| Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 128: He went at it agin as spunky as ever. | |
| in Morn. Chron. 29 May 3: Known for his spunky speculations / In buying up dead reputations. | |
| ‘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. | |
| 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. | |
| Dict. Americanisms. | |
 | 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’. | |
| letter in Yankee Correspondence (1996) 62: He is faithful & honest as the sun, smart, spunky, yet respectful & quiet. | |
| Memoirs of the US Secret Service 92: He was hopeful, spunky, cautious, and well informed. | |
| Randiana 62: At each thrust I gave her ladyship she responded with a promptitude, which showed how fresh and spunky her vigorous constitution was. | |
| Lantern (N.O.) 15 Oct. 5: Andy Bohne is a well-knit and spunky little chap, and built from the ground up. | |
| Chimmie Fadden Explains 140: But the Yanky was spunky – with Christian spunkiness. | |
| in Mr Dooley’s Chicago (1977) 287: She do have spunk. Oh, ’tis she’s th’ spunky wan. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | 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. | |
| 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. | |
| Cappy Ricks 307: He’s brainy and spunky and, by thunder, I’m for him. | |
| Georgie May 21: Her smile was a spunky tired one. | |
| (con. 1917–19) Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 565: That was a mighty spunky thing to do. | |
| Sharpe of the Flying Squad 44: Gloria was a very spunky girl. | |
| ‘Focus on Death’ Hollywood Detective Jan. 🌐 Diminutive as a Dresden doll, and spunkier than a regiment of Commandos. | |
| ‘Summer Tryout’ Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 33: She seemed very fresh and young and spunky. | |
| Beat Generation 100: Spunky, able to hold her own, Georgia greeted him impudently. | |
| (con. 1940s) Admiral (1968) 44: The spunky Limey admiral, Tom Phillips. | |
| Murder in Mount Holly (1999) 43: Mr Gibbon said that he liked spunky women and asked Herbie if his mother was spunky. | |
| ‘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. | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 476: Inez Soto was a spunky hard-luck girl. | |
| Powder 281: Reprise, currently enjoying a good run of form with a spunky roster of modern rock artists. | |
| Stuff 31: I took an instant dislike to the vision of blond-haired, freckle-faced cutesy spunky childhood it peddled. | |
| Guardian Mag. 30 Apr. 9/3: That spunky young bin man. |
2. (US) aroused, angry; also as adv.
| 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. | |
| Clockmaker III 294: She got up and shook her knittin’ at him quite spunky. | |
| 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. | |
| Stray Subjects (1848) 36: A very spunky and wrathy individual. | |
| 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. | |
| Adventures of Fudge Fumble 38: She was a little ‘spunky’. | |
| 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. | |
| ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 449: spunky, adj. Irritable; mettlesome. | |
| ‘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.
| 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. | |
| 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. | |
| Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 19: A pretty spunky, turdy, mess! | |
| Nunnery versus Fuckery 44: He thrust the slim neck of the vase into her spunky twat. | |
| Trainspotting 24: The toilet [...] has a good inch ay stagnant, spunky urine covering the flair. | |
| Grits 288: It’s like, all uv ar linked and bonded together through this [sexual] force, this cement . . . liker spunky Artadite it is. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 147: Everyone denied talking about it, like everyone denied talking about spunky cunts. |
4. (US) of women, attractive, fashionable.
| 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.
| (con. 1967) Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 78: And clean up the dog shit before you go, spunky. |
6. (Aus.) sexy.
| Ribald (Sydney) #45 23: TWO HORNY guys seek spunky chicks – send frank photo. | |
| Puberty Blues 5: Sue and I checked out the guys. They were spunkier at North Cronulla. | |
| Traveller’s Tool 7: Looking up the leather mini of the spunky little hornbag. | |
| 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. | |
| Peepshow [ebook] [of a man] The spunky bass player came up and sat at my table. | |
| Chopper 4 136: There are so many spunky-looking ladies who work in the prison service and are prepared to serve any bloke. | |
| 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.
| Tax Inspector (1992) 20: A Commodore S.S. [car] with spunky alloy wheels in the shape of a spinning sun. |