PRETTY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pretty

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/prˈɪti/ Listen

adverb

Pretty adv. In some degree; moderately; considerably; rather; almost; less emphatic than very; as, I am pretty sure of the fact; pretty cold weather. "Pretty plainly professes himself a sincere Christian."

adjective

Pretty adj. (compar. prettier; superl. prettiest)

Pleasing by delicacy or grace; attracting, but not striking or impressing; of a pleasing and attractive form a color; having slight or diminutive beauty; neat or elegant without elevation or grandeur; pleasingly, but not grandly, conceived or expressed; as, a pretty face; a pretty flower; a pretty poem. "This is the prettiest lowborn lass that ever Ran on the greensward."

Moderately large; considerable; as, he had saved a pretty fortune. "Wavering a pretty while."

Affectedly nice; foppish; used in an ill sense. "The pretty gentleman is the most complaisant in the world."

Mean; despicable; contemptible; used ironically; as, a pretty trick; a pretty fellow.

Stout; strong and brave; intrepid; valiant. (Scot.) "(He) observed they were pretty men, meaning not handsome."

Synonyms: Elegant; neat; fine. See Handsome.

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Etymology of 'Pretty'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pretty" Quotes from Famous Books

... do nothing of the kind. She is twice as pretty as she was last year; I am told she plays twice as well. She had always the sort of manner that provoked people one moment and charmed them the next. And, to judge by my few words with her just now, I should say she had developed it finely. Well, ...

— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... draped it gorgeously from stem to stern,—gold cordage looped the sails,—on the deck a band of young gals clad in white, and crowned with flowers, knelt, playing softly on quaintly shaped instruments,—and a cluster of tiny, semi-nude boys, fair as young cupids, were grouped in pretty reposeful attitudes along the edge of the gilded prow holding garlands of red and yellow blossoms which trailed down to the ...

— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... fruit trees in time of war, 2 Kings iii. 19, is in direct contravention of the Deuteronomic law (Deut. xx. 19). These narratives must precede the redaction of the book by a century and a half or more, and we have them pretty much as they left the hand of the original writers. A post-exilic hand, however, is evident in 1 Kings xviii. 31, 32a. To a later age, which believed in the exclusive rights of Jerusalem, the altar on Carmel, which was said to be repaired by Elijah, v. 30, was naturally an offence; ...

— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... younger girls, being never over anxious and being always more or less full of hope, were to-day only more hopeful and bright than usual. Many people turned to look at the pretty sisters, and to laugh at ...

— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... "I understand men pretty well; I know you are incapable of forfeiting your word; I do not wish to wrest your secret from you, and so let us talk no ...

— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

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