Word.ws English Dictionary

pretty much

pretty much adverb: almost completely; very nearly; mostly; more or less; basically.

Adverb

pretty much (not comparable)

  1. (informal) Almost completely; very nearly; mostly; more or less; basically.
    • That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 42
    • Poets are pretty much the same everywhere in their poetry—and in their prose.1912, G. K. Chesterton, “The Separatist and Sacred Things,”, in A Miscellany of Men
  2. (literally, rare) To a fairly high extent; quite a lot.
    • Bridget + Kathy are bumming me out pretty much lately. Seems one can't talk too much on any other subject but the kids. And I'm not ready for that rap yet.1973 March 4, Lou Sullivan, Diary

Questions about pretty much

What does pretty much mean?
Pretty much means almost completely; very nearly; mostly; more or less; basically.
What part of speech is pretty much?
Pretty much is an adverb.

Words near pretty much in the dictionary

  1. pretty boy
  2. pretty boys
  3. Pretty Good Privacy
  4. pretty horsebreaker
  5. pretty horsebreakers
  6. pretty much
  7. pretty pass
  8. pretty passes
  9. pretty pennies
  10. pretty penny
  11. pretty pictures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pretty much (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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