mettlesome

English

Etymology

From mettle +‎ -some.

Adjective

mettlesome (comparative more mettlesome, superlative most mettlesome)

1. Marked by mettle or bravery; courageous.
   • 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 6, in Uncle Tom's Cabin:

     The instant Haley touched the saddle, the mettlesome creature bounded from the earth with a sudden spring, that threw his master sprawling, some feet off, on the soft, dry turf.

   • 1948 September and October, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 334:

     Among them was the "West Country" driver, Swain, of Bude, over the Great Central, who reminded me irresistibly of a hunter putting a particularly mettlesome steed at the fences.

Derived terms

• mettlesomely
• mettlesomeness

Translations

of great mettle

• Bulgarian: смел (bg) (smel), храбър (bg) (hrabǎr)
• Finnish: lujahermoinen, rautainen (fi)
• French: preux (fr)
• German: mutig (de)
• Irish: faghartha
• Portuguese: brioso (pt)
• Portuguese: brioso (pt)