plucky
adjective
Simple meaning
Having or showing pluck, courage or spirit in trying circumstances.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pluhkeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈplʌki
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
informal
Having or showing pluck, courage or spirit in trying circumstances.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Having or showing pluck, courage or spirit in trying circumstances.
Used this way, plucky is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Brave and principled
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Nearby words
- spunky , much rarer in everyday speech
- gutsy , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: having or showing pluck or courage
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.