Courage or audacity. Hence SPUNKY. The noun is used by Goldsmith; and in Dec. 1806 Constable wrote to Murray, “We are not remarkable for want of spunk.” But it is more frequent in America than in Great Britain.
1794. The word “spunk” signifies courage, when there is no danger.—Mass. Spy, Dec. 10.
1796.
| No dog run mad, or Indian drunk, | |
| Could ever rival thee in spunk. | |
The Aurora, Phila., May 7. |
1798. We expect Smith will be dismissed from the service as wanting spunk to go to the necessary lengths.—Mass. Mercury, July 24.
1806.
| He please the ladies! very good; | |
| Why then I wouldn’t, if I could, | |
| So notable my spunk is; | |
| I’d let them sooner seek gallants | |
| From Afric’s coast and that of France, | |
| Brisk Sans Culottes—or monkies. | |
Mass. Spy, Sept. 24. |
1811.
| Here’s a health to the rights of New England, | |
| Here’s the true Yankey spunk of New England. | |
Id., July 10. |
1816. I was conscious that my superior “spunk” and activity would set me equal with my bully.—Id., Feb. 26.
1823. If you meet a chaise or team, never trouble yourself to be civil, but show your spunk, and dash along, and drive it out of the way.—Id., Nov. 5: from the Portland Gazette.
1824. Here is spunk as well as ingenuity.—Mass. Yeoman, Feb. 25.
1840. They might be for making him take sides, which he hasn’t the spunk to do.—John P. Kennedy, ‘Quodlibet,’ p. 111 (1860).
1840. Henry Beckworth came from the hand of Nature abundantly furnished with that excellent qualification known and revered throughout New England, under the expressive name of “spunk.”—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘A New Home,’ p. 175.
1842. He made his teeth meet in one of his captor’s arms, and was as spunky as a young crocodile.—Phila. Spirit of the Times. Jan. 1.
1843. Our countrywomen want patriotism—want independence. They possess what a Yankee would call “spunk,” but want a true consciousness of patriotic independence.—‘Lowell Offering,’ iii. 205. (Italics in the original.)
a. 1850. Any girl of spunk would have done the same.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 237.
1857. I like your spunk, but it don’t count in a fight with crazy folks and fools.—J. G. Holland, ‘The Bay-Path,’ p. 285–6.
1857. Arrived in the middle of the yard, she mounted the reversed apple-butter kettle: ‘I don’t want to go West, I don’t—I don’t want to leave Old Virginny; and I won’t leave, if there’s a man among ye that has spunk enough to ask me to stay.’—D. H. Strother, ‘Virginia Illustrated,’ p. 207.
1860. The old tea-drinking ladies of ’76 had more spunk than we.—Letter to the Oregon Argus, July 21.
