pretty

Meaning

Adj

1. Pleasant to the sight or other senses; attractive, especially of women or children.
2. Of objects or things: nice-looking, appealing.
3. (derogatory, often) Fine-looking; only superficially attractive; initially appealing but having little substance; see petty.
4. (UK, derogatory, sometimes) Effeminate.
5. Cunning; clever, skilful.
6. (dated) Moderately large; considerable.
7. (dated) Excellent, commendable, pleasing; fitting or proper (of actions, thoughts etc.).
8. (ironic) Awkward, unpleasant, bad.
9. Matching commonly accepted principles of formatting and syntax, for the sake of readability.

Adv

1. (not-comparable) Somewhat, fairly, quite; sometimes also (by meiosis) very.
2. (dialectal, not-comparable) Prettily, in a pretty manner.

Noun

1. A pretty person; a term of address to a pretty person.
2. Something that is pretty.

Verb

To make pretty; to beautify

Synonyms

beautiful

lovely

handsome

nice

cute

good-looking

attractive

charming

rather

fairly

graceful

quite

fair

good

👍

fine

considerably

comely

precious

elegant

adorable

neat

darling

enough

pleasing

dainty

kind

good looking

sufficiently

sweet

very

smart

pleasant

be good-looking

magnificent

jolly

dinky

beauteous

nice-looking

somewhat

reasonably

shapely

sightly

pulchritudinous

chic

passably

quaint

moderately

bonny

middling

net

Translations

joli

bonito

beau

hübsch

bello

carino

schön

lindo

bonito

bastante

belle

bello

mooi

ziemlich

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈpɹɪti/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: prety

Inherited from Old English: prættiġ

Cognate with Dutch: prettig

Cognate with Low German: prettig

Cognate with Icelandic: prettugur

In summary

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.