spritelikeadv.adj.

1601 R. Verstegan Odes 101 Through an vnopened passage passing foorth, A humaine body spryte-lyke doth dispose.

?1611 G. Chapman tr. Homer Iliads xxi. 18 The Worthy,..spritelike, did with his sword aduance Vp to the riuer.

1640 H. Mill Nights Search 217 Whence cam'st thou now? spright-like thou dost appeare.

1833 B. T. H. Cole Renegade ii. 55 Sprite-like she came.

1857 Abstr. Returns Agric. Societies Mass. 1856 387 Wit, fun, and frolic are like dew-drops that sparkle and glitter in the bright sunlight but for a moment; sprite-like they come and go.

1921 Brit. Columbia Labor News 12 Aug. 4/2 With the slightest rustle of wind they [sc. shadows] flit, sprite-like, in all directions.

2004 St. Petersburg (Florida) Times (Nexis) 17 Dec. 1 Lane Wetherington leaps from a tractor and bounds, spritelike, across his parents' front yard.

1635 J. Vicars tr. R. Brathwait Last Trumpet i. 23 So gastly, ghostly, frightfull, spritelike, he, Fierce, furious, fatall, doth appeare to me.

1658 J. Rowland tr. T. Moffett Theater of Insects in Topsell's Hist. Four-footed Beasts (rev. ed.) 924 Such spritelike courage hath Nature planted in them.

1841 Court Mag. Apr. 309 The boy's shadow, as he dodged up and down in the moonlight, gave a sprite-like vivacity to the scene.

1885 A. Edwardes Girton Girl I. vi. 99 For, indeed, Marjorie Bartrand was suggestive of something weird, sprite-like, and of a nature to take other form at an hour when owls do fly.

1953 C. Beaton Diary 23 July in Self Portrait with Friends (1979) xviii. 262 A.H. [i.e. Audrey Hepburn] is chock-a-block with spritelike charm.

2015 J. Renehan Valley (2016) ix. 103 She was small and sprite-like with a frizzy blond mane.