mettled

From mettle +‎ -ed.

mettled (comparative more mettled, superlative most mettled)

1. (archaic) Having mettle; pithy, spirited
   • a. 1720 (date written), Joseph Addison, The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume I, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC, page 154:

     The mettled ſteeds, when from their noſtrils flows / The ſcorching fire, that in their entrails glows.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 123:

     She looked, and saw one of the most graceful cavaliers that ever reined in a mettled horse.

• “mettled”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.