mettlesome

English

From mettle +‎ -some.

mettlesome (comparative more mettlesome, superlative most mettlesome)

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.

of great mettle