mettlesome

comparative more mettlesome · superlative most mettlesome

1. Marked by mettle or bravery; courageous.

   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.

   1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 6, in Uncle Tom's Cabin

   1 more example

   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.

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