sprightly
Americanadjective
adverb
adjective
adverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sprightly
Explanation
To be sprightly is to be full of youthful, vibrant energy. You don’t have to be young to be sprightly, though, energetic old people can be sprightly, too. Weeeeeee! The word sprightly comes from the word sprite, which is a small, elf-like fairy creature. If someone acts like a happy little fairy, has a lot of enthusiasm, and acts in a youthful way, she’s sprightly. To be sprightly is to be full of spirit and vitality, to be happy, and to have a positive attitude. Someone who radiates energy and positivity is sprightly.
Vocabulary lists containing sprightly
Things Fall Apart
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Smiley Face: Synonyms for "Happy"
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Stargirl
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ms. Lewin has written a sprightly account of writers’ rooms on both sides of the Atlantic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 27, 2026
Its cast is exactly the sprightly ensemble needed to land its what-if laughs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026
Teenage star Yamal underwhelmed in last week's defeat by Real Madrid after coming back from a groin issue, but looked more sprightly against Elche.
From Barron's ● Nov. 2, 2025
The sprightly 72-year-old is a familiar and much-loved figure in the neighbourhood.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2025
She looked far too young and sprightly to have worn the crown for over forty years.
From "The Shakespeare Stealer" by Gary L. Blackwood
Likewise, after 2024’s narratively dreary “Wicked,” returning director Jon M. Chu persuades us to come back to Oz for this smarter, sprightlier follow-up that’s all about the pageantry of propaganda.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 18, 2025
In all-wheel-drive form, the RDX is a bit sprightlier around corners than the GV70.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 17, 2022
“I haven’t been home in a couple of weeks,” he says, sounding sprightlier than you might expect.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 5, 2020
At fifty-two, she is sprightlier than her more serious work suggests, a quality that helps earn the trust of her subjects, whether in Africa or in coal country.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 20, 2017
Miss Whitlaw seemed to lose ten years and become sprightlier.
From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep
And the rhythmic and harmonic quirkiness of the two Contredanses made the sprightliest movements in the Bach, Handel and Muffat works sound staid.
From New York Times ● Oct. 17, 2011
While dramatic series have become drearier, commercials have developed into the sprightliest little plays on television.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the days of Alva Johnston and of Stanley Walker, the Trib's city coverage was the sprightliest in town.
From Time Magazine Archive
They appear on the labels of some of the most intrepid clothes around, and they belong to two of the sprightliest newcomers anywhere on the fashion map.
From Time Magazine Archive
I am told he is some years past sixty; and yet he has all the vivacity and frolic, and whim of the sprightliest youth.
From Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica by Hill, George Birkbeck Norman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
