spunky

Related to spunky: lofty, inadvertently, perplex

spunky

Energetically, enthusiastically resolute or courageous; having or showing spirit or moxie. She plays Rebecca, a spunky teenager looking to make a name for herself as a drummer. The company hired a spunky new marketing manager who has really turned around their quarterly sales.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

spunky

(ˈspəŋki)
mod. gutsy; courageous. I like a spunky girl—one who can really dance. The guy’s a shrimp, but he’s spunky.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • screw (one's) courage to the sticking place
  • screw up (one's) courage to the sticking place
  • feeling (one's) moxie
  • feeling one's Moxie
  • moxie
  • know where (one) is going
  • know where you're going
  • put on a (brave) front
  • put up a (brave) front
  • put up a brave front
References in periodicals archive
His wife moved in with her spunky young lover, warning him to be more careful than her husband because she didn't want any more children.
Notably, if memory serves, the top choice of teen girls in the 1980 survey was "California highway patrol motorcycle officer," and the lead career from the 1965 survey was "spunky and alluring yet chaste and wholesome surfer girl."
Furthermore, the trick here is that the key mover happens to be the commentator himself who (we hear), still wheedles those with power, money and influence into commissioning spunky architects.
With poignant as well as spunky moments expressed through pacing and pitch changes, listeners will not just hear, but also feel the changing and developing emotions.
In this 13-episode season, the Doctor is joined by a spunky sidekick, Rose (Billie Piper), whom he saves from murderous plastic store mannequins.
The most widely recognized adversaries were the elegant North American F-86 Sabre and the spunky MiG 15.
Being an adopted one myself, I happen to believe we're the most hospitable, spunky, humorous people in the country.
draws on Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Julian of Norwich and from a host of modern poets and adds his usual spunky comments.
CONSPIRACY is the third in the series and here the spunky young detective sniffs out who the perp is in the Queen's murder plot.
Newly added were Kim Begley's superbly sung Florestan, and the downstairs couple: Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, who made Marzelline unusually spunky while singing delightfully, and Australian tenor Steve Davislim, a pure-voiced Jacquino.
Among the book's most fascinating sections detail the shift from regimented, scientific childrearing to a more expressive and less controlling approach and the emergence of the "cute" child--sweet, spunky, mischievous, or coquettish--and how this image legitimated increased parental expenditure.
She said: ``That shows what spunky, independent-minded people in Liverpool are.
This spunky 4WD-optional SUV is powered by an electric-gasoline hybrid V6 engine that delivers a whopping estimated 35 to 40 mpg on the EPA city cycle, which is 20 mpg better than the conventional Escape V6.
A spunky looking woman with curly hair and blue eyes, she tries to explain in everyday English her work on lead.
But other critics see a hipper bloodline in this show about a surly teen's encounters with the supernatural, linking Joan with the spunky, bratty heroines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, and this season's Tru Calling.