| / English Dictionary |
PRETTY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: prettied , prettier , prettiest
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Pleasing by delicacy or grace; not imposing
Example:
pretty room
Classified under:
Similar:
beautiful (delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration)
Derivation:
prettiness (the quality of being appealing in a delicate or graceful way (of a girl or young woman))
Sense 2
Meaning:
(used ironically) unexpectedly bad
Example:
a pretty kettle of fish
Classified under:
Similar:
bad (having undesirable or negative qualities)
Domain usage:
irony (a trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs)
II. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
To certain extent or degree
Example:
he is fairly clever with computers
Synonyms:
fairly; jolly; middling; moderately; passably; pretty; reasonably; somewhat
Classified under:
Context examples:
Also, there is a woman who sits in the snow alongside. She is white woman, she is young, very pretty, maybe she is twenty years old, maybe twenty-five years old.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Holmes laughed. “It is quite a pretty little problem,” said he.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
You're a pretty colour, certainly; why, your liver, man, is upside down.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent put in his appearance.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
It was nearly six o’clock before we found ourselves in the pretty Surrey village of Esher, with Inspector Baynes as our companion.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He has already had one or two little wives, but Louisa Biron is his favourite, a pretty little girl of five years of age.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
A pretty world it would be with all the women out of it.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
With every rumble of wheels, too, her eyes would glance towards the door, and her hands steal up to smooth her pretty black hair.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Geriatric Depression Scale, Short Form (GDS-SF) Do you feel pretty worthless the way you are now?
(GDS-SF - Feel Worthless, NCI Thesaurus)
Dear old table, he said, I've spent some happy hours with you, and you've been a pretty good friend when all is said and done.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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