These words refer to an inclination to take part in pleasurable activity. Playful is the most general of these words and the most neutral in indicating any mood of levity that does not directly contribute to the accomplishing of essential or practical tasks: distracted from her sewing by the playful kitten who wanted to chase reels of cotton round the room; husbands who expect to return at night to well-kept homes and to lively and playful children.

Frolicsome is an intensification of playful in that it suggests the positive presence of exuberant high spirits that make one wish to undertake madcap or zany adventures of an unplanned spur-of-the-moment sort: a group of frolicsome youngsters who decided to drive to the beach at four in the morning. The carefree overtone of playful is intensified here: frolicsome puppies in a corner of the garden.

Frisky , like frolicsome , also pertains to exuberant high spirits, but stresses as well an extremely active physical energy that may be nervous, impatient, headlong and irrepressible: three or four frisky colts cantering about the pasture; a first round of drinks that made him feel frisky and insouciant. The word is even more pertinent to sexual adventurousness than any of the others, but may stress, more informally in this case, lusty impatience rather than good-humoured desire: giving her boyfriend a slap whenever he became too frisky . Sportive may suggest an inclination to merrymaking in almost as neutral a way as playful , though it is considerably more formal than these other words: coffee-shops that are gathering places for sportive teenagers. The word may also refer specifically to an interest in games or sports: taking down his golf clubs every spring when the weather makes him feel sportive . More often, the word refers to a sexual interest although it need not suggest either the levity inherent in frolicsome or the impatience possible for frisky: parties where sportive career girls can meet unattached males on the make.