spunk

Lorelai’s spunk is presented as a secret to her success: Having been a teen mom, she drips with “up by your bootstraps” energy.

From Slate ● Apr. 14, 2025

She was a successful writer in New York City with an impossibly expensive wardrobe, a singular style, good friends and a lot of spunk.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2024

Indeed, Kansara plays Ria with spunk and a youthful vigor that makes it hard not to reminisce on one's own adolescent years.

From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2023

That’s a shame for star Naomi Ackie, who gamely embodies Houston’s luminous star power, sharp spunk and, later, world-weary disillusionment.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2022

You want one with spunk but at the same time ain’t too stubborn.

From "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson

An' the haill apotheck lay in spails, As the grey mear warsled free; An' when auld Jock Smairt saw the fashion o' his cairt: "Wha's seekin' ony spunks?" says he.

From The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots by David Rorie

He looked hard at me wi' a pair o' een that glowed like twa spunks, and then he says, says he: "You've been born in these pairts, I understan'?"

From The Mystery of Cloomber by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Then some person invented strips of wood dipped in sulphur and called "spunks."

From Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle

The Advocate, who is not without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life-safe out of Simon and the Duke.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson

But I ain't got to the wonders none as yet,' reemonstrates the Colonel, who spunks up a bit peevish for him.

From Wolfville Nights by Alfred Henry Lewis