Words / M / General

mettle

noun/ˈmɛtl/

C1CEFR level
58/100Rarity: uncommon
FormalRegister

A person's spirit, resilience, and courage when tested.

The long siege tested the mettle of every soldier on the wall.

Similar: spirit, fortitude, grit

Origin: A variant spelling of metal, in the figurative sense of temperament.

Topic: resilience in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: resilience