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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Mettle \Met"tle\, noun [E. metal, used in a tropical sense in allusion to the temper of the metal of a sword blade. See {Metal}.] Substance or quality of temperament; spirit, esp. as regards honor, courage, fortitude, ardor, etc.; disposition; -- usually in a good sense; as, to test a person's mettle.
A certain critical hour which shall . . . try what mettle his heart is made of. --South.
Gentlemen of brave mettle. --Shak.
The winged courser, like a generous horse, Shows most true mettle when you check his course. --Pope.
{To put one one's mettle}, to cause or incite one to use one's best efforts.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
mettle
noun: the courage to carry on; "he kept fighting on pure spunk"; "you haven't got the heart for baseball" [syn: {heart}, {nerve}, {spunk}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
92 Moby Thesaurus words for "mettle": activity, animation, animus, aptitude, ardor, backbone, bent, bias, bottom, brio, briskness, cast, character, chutzpah, constitution, courage, dauntlessness, diathesis, disposition, eccentricity, elan, enthusiasm, gameness, glow, grain, grit, gusto, guts, gutsiness, guttiness, heart, heart of oak, idiosyncrasy, impetuosity, impetus, inclination, individualism, intestinal fortitude, joie de vivre, kidney, leaning, life, liveliness, lustiness, make, makeup, mental set, mettlesomeness, mind, mind-set, mold, moxie, nature, nerve, perkiness, pertness, pith, pluck, pluckiness, predilection, predisposition, preference, proclivity, propensity, resolution, robustness, set, slant, spirit, spiritedness, spunk, spunkiness, stamina, stamp, stout heart, strain, streak, stripe, temper, temperament, tendency, toughness, true grit, turn, turn of mind, twist, type, vivacity, warmth, warp, zest, zestfulness
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