blithesome

English

Etymology

From blithe +‎ -some.

Adjective

blithesome (comparative more blithesome, superlative most blithesome)

1. Happy or spriteful; carefree.
   • 1794, Robert Southey, Wat Tyler. A Dramatic Poem. In Three Acts, London: J[ohn] M‘Creery, […] for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, […], published 1817, →OCLC, Act I, page 9:

     Fare not the birds well, as from spray to spray / Blithsome they bound—yet find their simple food / Scattered abundantly?

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 175:

     She made herself as blithesome as a lark, and at last she offered him two hundred dollars if he would sell her the whistle, and tell her how she should manage to get it safe home with her.

   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, “Wayfarers All”, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 211:

     [']Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!' 'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old life and into the new!

Derived terms

• blithesomely
• blithesomeness