pretty

CEFRA1

/ˈpɹɪt.i/

adjective · adverb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Attractive in a delicate or pleasant way.

  2. 02

    adverb

    To a fairly high degree; quite.

Examples

  • That was a pretty dumb thing to do.

  • "This looks pretty interesting," Hiroshi says.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
1

Also pronounced

  • [ˈpɹɪɾ.i]
  • /ˈpɜɹ.ti/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Fine-looking; only superficially attractive; initially appealing but having little substance; see petty.

  2. Of objects or things: nice-looking, appealing.

  3. Pleasant to the sight or other senses; attractive, especially of women or children.

More examples

In context

  • How do you spell "pretty"?

  • We'll stop at the knife store and look at the sharp pretties.

  • Hal Smith, manager of the Ferry Field theatre, Detroit, one of the largest and prettiest outskirt houses in town, played Metro's "Revelation" for three days last week

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

She wore a blank dress to the party and everyone complimented her.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Middle English prety, preti, praty, prati, from Old English prættiġ (“tricky, crafty, sly, cunning, wily, astute”), from Proto-West Germanic *prattug, from Proto-Germanic *prattugaz (“boastful, sly, slick, deceitful, tricky, cunning”), corresponding to prat (“trick”) + -y. Doublet of pratty. Cognate with Dutch prettig (“nice, pleasant”), Low German prettig (“funny”), Icelandic prettugur (“deceitful, tricky”). For the semantic development, compare canny, clever, cute.