springy

spring +‎ -y

• IPA^(key): /ˈspɹɪŋi/

springy (comparative springier, superlative springiest)

1. That returns rapidly to its original form (as a spring does) after being bent, compressed, stretched, etc.

   The soft peat was springy under her feet.

   • 2013, Eric Sloane, Weather Almanac, →ISBN, page 48:

     The hard woods were used for pegging, the soft woods for cradling the load and the springy woods for carrying it.

   • 0201 July 10, Jesse Hassenger, “Improbably but amusingly, Hotel Transylvania 3 notches a series best”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     What returning director Genndy Tartakovsky reveres is animation—and not necessarily the wonders of photorealistic follicle creation or impeccably rendered water, but the kind of gloriously exaggerated movement, the stretchy and springy caricature, that enlivens many classic cartoons.

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     We had now reach'd the closest point of union; but when he backened to come on the fiercer, as if I had been actuated by a fear of losing him, in the height of my fury I twisted my legs round his naked loins, the flesh of which, so firm, so springy to the touch, quiver'd again under the pressure

2. Lively; bouncy.
   • 1982 April 10, Andrea Loewenstein, “Daily Life”, in Gay Community News, page 11:

     Shangrila and Linda is an outstandingly uneven book -- sometimes it's fun and springy, and other times it's irritating and boring.

   • 2005, Adam Zachary Newton, The Elsewhere: On Belonging at a Near Distance, →ISBN, page 270:

     Every step—a light click of the heel and then a springy step, optimistic, perhaps a bit contemptuous.

3. Characteristic of the spring season.
   • 1947, Gulielma Fell Alsop, Deer Creek: The Story of a Golden Childhood, page 276:

     It was springy weather after Easter, and she wore a pale lavender silk dress with myriad little ruchings down the front, each edged with a narrow band of real lace.

   • 2014, Kitty Burns Florey, Vigil for a Stranger, →ISBN:

     We had a blizzard, a thaw, a spell of springy weather, and James baked me a heart-shaped white clam pizza for Valentine's Day.

   • 2015, Marian Baldwin, Canteening Overseas 1917-1919:

     After our few brief days of springy weather it surely is a sudden change.

4. Of land, having many springs (of water).

• (that returns to its original form): bouncy, elastic, resilient
• (lively): bouncy, jaunty, energetic, vigorous
• (characteristic of spring): springlike, mild

• unspringy

• springily
• springiness
• unspringy

• pryings, spy ring