a. Chiefly dial. Also spract. [Of obscure origin: current mainly in west midland and south-western counties. Cf. SPRACKLY adv. and SPRAG a.] Brisk, active; alert, smart; in good health and spirits.
1747. Aston, Suppl. Cibber’s Lives, 15. Mr. Dogget was a little, lively, spract Man.
1785. Sarah Fielding, Ophelia, II. vi. He will be … glad to hear you set out … so hoddy and sprack!
1817. Lady Granville, Lett. (1894), I. 92. She will not shrink from so sprack an adviser. Ibid., 111. She gives life to society, and everything is more sprack.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, vii. He observed that ‘master looked sprack agin.’
1880. Freeman, in W. R. W. Stephens, Life (1895), II. 195. I am getting mighty sprack, and live as it were with clenched fists.
Hence Sprackish a.
1882. Mrs. Nathan, Langreath, I. 312. Your Ladyship looks quite sprackish this evening!
