The word ‘leonine’ in the passage means

PASSAGE-I
Gandhi was not born great. He was a blundering boy, a mediocre student. a poor lawyer, an ordinary individual until he remade himself. He was a self-remade man. He had faith in himself. But above all, he had a deep, touching faith in the peasants, miners, labourers, and young unformed men and women whom he drew into his work. He fed them all an elixir of growth which often transformed nameless, un-educated people into leonine heroes. The elixir was fearlessness.