spirited

1. 1
   adjective

   Marked by energy and liveliness, often with a bold or courageous edge.

   Like a young horse that tosses its head and strains at the reins, eager to gallop.

   The debate turned into a spirited exchange between the two candidates.

   Critics praised the orchestra's spirited performance of the symphony.

   Similarlively, animated, energetic, vigorous, feisty

   Oppositelackluster, listless, lifeless, dull

   Note

   A favorite of match reports, where it praises effort rather than result: a captain's spirited display holding a defense together, or a spirited late challenge from a side that still loses. It compares with more and most (a more spirited reply), never with -er. Unlike the verb form, it takes no object and sits before a noun or after be.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of spirit.

   The celebrity was spirited out of the venue through a back door.

   Smugglers spirited the goods across the border under cover of night.

   Note

   One spelling serves as both past tense and participle, and two quite different verbs stand behind it. The usual one carries something off in haste or secrecy, so it wants a direction: spirited away, out of the venue, across the border. The rarer one means to animate or encourage and is sometimes followed by up. Neither should be confused with the adjective for liveliness, which takes no object.

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