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
Conductor Corrado Rovaris led a sprightly, transparent performance, full of Rossinian sparkle and verve, and the solo musicians, particularly the flutist, were as vivid and idiomatic as the singers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2025
She did a sprightly pirouette, a curtsy, waved her hand in a window-washer motion, and said, “Hi.”
From "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli
But the shifts to come could be more radical than just employees moving from big tech companies to smaller, sprightlier ones.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 24, 2023
In all-wheel-drive form, the RDX is a bit sprightlier around corners than the GV70.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 17, 2022
Crews has also utilised his linebacker physique in more visceral projects, including playing one of the sprightlier members of Sylvester Stallone’s OAP action ensemble The Expendables.
From The Guardian ● May 22, 2018
We’ve moved from a static description to a sprightlier one and cut the word count almost in half.
From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 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
Result: one of the sprightliest TV hours of the fall.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is a fair sample of the unvarnished style and the deadpan humor that mark the weekly Lancet as the sprightliest and most outspoken voice in medical journalism.
From Time Magazine Archive
In a disapproving review last week, Conservative Columnist William F. Buckley Jr. accused Reeves of exaggeration but nonetheless placed him "among the two or three sprightliest political writers in America."
From Time Magazine Archive
World.—"One of the sprightliest and most entertaining works of the period that it is possible to read."
From The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century by Charles Bastide
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.
