Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See sprightliness, etc.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • She missed the spriteliness, the freedom afforded her by her human form.

    The Black Wing Kirchoff, Mary 1993

  • So also, and solely for our benefit, she assumed a vivacity and spriteliness that ill suited her, that having regard to her age and tendency towards rheumatism must have cost her no small effort.

    Paul Kelver, a Novel 1893

  • Everything is excused by the play of images and the spriteliness of expression.

    Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism 1891

  • The long straight black hair, the eyes, and the place where it was found, all indicated for it an Indian descent; but a spriteliness and delicacy of feature, and fairness of complexion, never found among the aboriginal savages, proclaimed a decided predominance of European blood.

    Eoneguski, or, the Cherokee Chief: A Tale of Past Wars. Vol. I. 1839

  • His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the spriteliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude.

    Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia 1803

  • _I am now passed from the spring to the autumn of my days, but I am without those comforts that should succeed the spriteliness of bloom, and support me in this melancholy season.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • "They do not, said Pekuah, want that unaffecting and ignoble beauty which may subsist without spriteliness or sublimity, without energy of thought or dignity of virtue.

    Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia 1803

  • In the assembly, where you passed the last night, there appeared such spriteliness of air, and volatility of fancy as might have suited beings of an higher order, formed to inhabit serener regions inaccessible to care or sorrow: yet believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection. "

    Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia 1803

  • II. vii.88 (170,2) thy pall'd fortunes] _Palled_, is vapid, past its time of excellence; _palled_ wine, is wine that has lost its original spriteliness.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

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