(superl.) Having pluck or courage; characterized by pluck; displaying pluck; courageous; spirited; as, a plucky race.
Example Sentences:
(1) When asked why the streets of London were not heaving with demonstrators protesting against Russia turning Aleppo into the Guernica of our times, Stop the War replied that it had no wish to add to the “jingoism” politicians were whipping up against plucky little Russia .
(2) Behind the sedately revolving capsules of the London Eye, plucky local resident George Turner has been holding another gargantuan development machine to account in a David-and-Goliath planning battle that reached the High Court.
(3) Whereas England was in retreat, Spain was widely admired as a nation of plucky fighters who had just conquered the Muslim kingdom of Granada.
(4) Despite its environmental projects and its philanthropic arm, the perception of Google is slowly morphing from plucky David to sinister Goliath.
(5) "The BBC are the Germans of this tournament, slick and reliable, and ITV are the plucky Costa Ricans who gave us some great moments even if they don't get to lift the trophy," said Ben Preston, editor of Radio Times.
(6) Misguided attempts by well-wishers to literally or metaphorically pat her on the back and praise her "pluckiness" are given short shrift.
(7) Indeed, read the “illustrative” examples the DWP provides in the consultation document – a hypothetical 58-year-old woman with osteoarthritis who “uses the sink for support when getting off the toilet, dresses sitting down and wears slip-on shoes for ease” – and it is easy to get the impression that what disabled people need is just a plucky attitude rather than social security.
(8) I'm tempted as I think Liverpool might bottle it against Newcastle, Chelsea should see off an awful Cardiff team and even though plucky little City will probably get a drubbing against Big Sam's claret and blue army they'll still finish first.
(9) It’s an intentionally ridiculous solution to a ridiculous problem.” Another plucky Dutch designer thinks he can turn the pollution into a lucrative commodity.
(10) The country they love no longer exists, except in Ealing comedies – my favourite one of which is Passport to Pimlico (1949), in which plucky Londoners paradoxically demonstrate their Britishness by seceding from the British state.
(11) As if to reinforce the image of "plucky Georgia" fighting against the odds, there have been TV images of the Georgian president, wearing a flak jacket, bundled away by his security guards during a visit to Gori as Russian aircraft buzzed overhead.
(12) We hear it today at its coarsest when English football fans sing about “ Ten German bombers ” shot down by plucky British fighters, and then chant, “ Fuck off Europe, we’re all voting out .” Not that myth-making is uniquely British.
(13) MC PREDICTION: Spain, Croatia, Turkey, Czech Republic GROUP E REP IRELAND Almost a stereotypically plucky team hiding major weaknesses, particularly in goal, but a victory over Germany and a two-leg win against Bosnia shows Martin O’Neill’s side are capable of shocking better sides.
(14) May talk about Liverpool, too 9.15am Below the line, Chaval asks: "Sean, I'm of a mind to back the plucky Danish resistance to hang on for a draw against a languid Dutch side today, at odds not too shy of 3-1.
(15) Jim Murphy earns respect for his plucky fight to defend a third of seats that might be held, but Labour’s Scots identity crisis runs deep.
(16) But she was a real optimist with a plucky attitude.
(17) And rather than being the product of a dynamic free market and individual plucky entrepreneurs, their technological success owes everything to the public sector.
(18) But for a thrusting young company eager to blow up a traditional market but without anything much in the way of an advertising budget, it seems no controversy – courted or not – that allows you to play the plucky but oppressed newcomer, eager only to get on and do your thing, will do you much harm.
(19) Record heights But Setanta, named after a plucky Celtic warrior, leapt into the big league when European competition authorities forced the Premier League to open up the way it sells its rights.
(20) My own first encounter with Norfolk in literature came in the form of the heroic and crime-solving adventures of Arthur Ransome's Coot Club , a plucky little gang of boys and girls who live around Horning on the Norfolk Broads, in the Swallows and Amazons series of novels, a world as far from my own upbringing as was imaginable.
Precocious
Definition:
(a.) Ripe or mature before the proper or natural time; early or prematurely ripe or developed; as, precocious trees.
(a.) Developed more than is natural or usual at a given age; exceeding what is to be expected of one's years; too forward; -- used especially of mental forwardness; as, a precocious child; precocious talents.
Example Sentences:
(1) Locally directed cell migration was observed in a group of cells in 1. which were involved in a process of aggregation, the latter being probably related to precocious formation of organ primordia.
(2) The importance of precocious development for planning teratological studies is emphasized.
(3) We used two experimental paradigms inspired by developmental biology to study how bees obtain information on changing colony needs that results in precocious foraging.
(4) Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) infusion performed in five patients with precocious adrenarche produced at least a 50 greater than increase in urinary T excretion in all and a similar increase in Adiol excretion in four of five patients.
(5) Most of what is understood about precocious puberty in boys comes from boys with precocious puberty secondary to poorly controlled CAH.
(6) As a precociously talented young artist, his interests didn't lie with landscape or the countryside – "though I did collect frog spawn and things like that" – but more with the advertising, posters and signwriting he saw around town.
(7) The most recently discovered species, Enterocytozoon bieneusi, is known only from the small intestinal enterocytes of patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and is easily differentiated from other microsporidia by the precocious development of spore organelles in the sporont and by the poor development of the endospore layer of the spore wall.
(8) Several lines of experimental evidence indicate that contact with the animal pole locus, or "target" region, is crucial for the change in phenotype of the SMCs: (1) the phenotypic change can be induced precociously by bringing the animal pole region within reach of the tip of the archenteron early in gastrulation.
(9) Tumors are rare, but well-documented causes of precocious puberty in both sexes.
(10) Long-acting GnRH agonists are the treatment of choice for central precocious puberty.
(11) The results obtained for the basal cortisol were in disaccordance with a previous report; however, we used a sensitive test to detect precocious involvement of the adrenal glands.
(12) The precocious reformation of the nuclear envelope may be responsible for the lengthening of metaphase.
(13) We propose a model whereby a protein repressor, under the control of PKA, inhibits precocious induction of stalk cell differentiation by DIF and so regulates the choice between slug migration and culmination.
(14) The precocious beginning of psychogenic diabetes insipidus, and some conclusions, on a difficult case of hard diagnosis are emphasized.
(15) Precocious puberty due to other causes can be treated more effectively with inhibitors of steroidogenesis and blockers of androgen action.
(16) In altricial species, embryonic growth rate and metabolic rate increase continuously during incubation, whereas in precocial species, embryonic growth rate declines shortly before hatching so that metabolic rate usually reaches a plateau before hatching.
(17) It remains unclear, however, whether such changes in expression of MAP2 represent a primary effect of the mutation or if it is only a precocious result of Purkinje cell degeneration.
(18) These events appeared to be similar to those occuring in the adult cycling rat, in precocious puberty induced by the administration of pregnant mare serum gonadotropins and during the onset of natural puberty.
(19) Recent evidence suggests that a group of children exists in whom premature sexual maturation occurs in the absence of pubertal levels of gonadotropins; that is, they have gonadotropin-independent precocious puberty.
(20) The mother of an 11-year-old epileptic, mentally retarded, and sexually precocious girl asked to have the girl sterilized.