Definition of SPUNKY

Examples of spunky in a Sentence

a spunky determination to make the best of a bad situation

Recent Examples on the Web Speckles is a spunky little guy with a big personality. — Maeve Dunigan, The New Yorker, "My Cat Just Said “Feed Me, Woman” Out Loud—Is This Normal?," 16 June 2020 Lilly is a quirky, spunky, brilliant pediatric student who completed her residency in July 2019. — Gerrad Hall, EW.com, "Meet the 10 people getting a make-better in Queer Eye season 5," 4 June 2020 Glitchy lighting at the high school basketball game belies the bigger deal at stake for the local denizens, especially a spunky young radio operator (Sierra McCormick) and local radio DJ (Jake Horowitz) who investigate a weird audio frequency. — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, "What to stream this weekend: 'The High Note,' 'The Vast of Night,' HBO Max's 'On the Record' documentary," 28 May 2020 The second season, which dropped on Halloween in 2017, tried hard to capture that original magic with a couple extra twists in the forms of hothead bully Billy (Dacre Montgomery) and his spunky kid sister Max (Sadie Sink). — chicagotribune.com, "TV Review: ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3," 30 June 2019 And while the 76ers were a spunky young team who surprised many with this run, the Celtics were a group of veteran NBA champions, with the core of Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo having won the title in 2008. — Derek Lawrence, EW.com, "How insane was Howard Ratner's big Uncut Gems bet? An EW investigation," 26 May 2020 Meanwhile, spunky girl-next-door Mary (Bow) is secretly in love with the clueless Jack. — Jeanne Jakle, ExpressNews.com, "San Antonio made movie history in 1920s with first Academy Award best picture winner ‘Wings’," 5 May 2020 Southlake, previously known for legendary Dragon football, great schools, a strong community volunteer force and a beautiful town square is now known for a spunky creative spirit. — Dallas News, "All this police officer wants for his city is to stay safe - and laugh. He’s pulling it off.," 8 May 2020 The short-legged, long-bodied breed is known for being spunky and sociable. — Jennifer Peltz, BostonGlobe.com, "In a US now in puppy love, labs still tops, but corgis rise," 1 May 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'spunky.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Learn More about spunky

Dictionary Entries near spunky

Statistics for spunky

Last Updated

21 Jun 2020

Cite this Entry

“Spunky.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spunky. Accessed 9 Jul. 2020.

Which of the following words means “of or relating to summer”?

Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?

TAKE THE QUIZ

Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.

TAKE THE QUIZ

spunky