Word.ws English Dictionary

purdy

/ˈpɜɹ.di/

purdy is the pronunciation spelling of pretty.

Meaning of pretty

Adjective

pretty (comparative prettier, superlative prettiest)

  1. Pleasant to the sight or other senses; attractive, especially of women or children.
    • Having brought it to a close, he took his way to the Kursaal. The great German watering-place is one of the prettiest nooks in Europe, and of a summer evening in the gaming days, five-and-twenty years ago, it was one of the most brilliant scenes.1879, Henry James, chapter III, in Confidence, London: Chatto & Windus
    Synonyms:
    dainty
  2. Of objects or things: nice-looking, appealing.
    • Some fans may have mistaken the album’s floatiness for aimlessness, but Mr. Mercer’s songs have never been sneakier, or prettier.2007 October 25, Kelefa Sanneh, “Songs With a Sneaky Streak”, in The New York Times
  3. (derogatory, often) Fine-looking; only superficially attractive; initially appealing but having little substance; see petty.
    • Damned by the Socialists as "traitors to the working class," its leaders were decried by Tories as "faceless peddlers of politics with a pretty little trinket for every taste."1962 September 28, “New Life for the Liberals”, in Time
  4. (UK, derogatory, sometimes) Effeminate.
  5. Cunning; clever, skilful.
    • In the end, however, it was a very pretty shot, right across the chasm; killed first fire, and the brute fell headlong into the brook […].1877, George Hesekiel, Bayard Taylor, Bismarck his Authentic Biography, page 380
  6. (dated) Moderately large; considerable.
    • they flung all the goods in the house out at the windows into the street, or into the sea, as they supposed; thus they continued mad a pretty season […].1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section...

See all 15 meanings of pretty

Proper noun capitalized: Purdy

Purdy (plural Purdys)

  1. A surname from Norman.

Forms of purdy

Adjective
comparativepurdier
superlativepurdiest
alternative formpurty
Proper noun
pluralPurdys

Origin of purdy

Corruption of pretty, representing the pronunciation of this word in the southern United States.

Variant of Purdue.

Words that rhyme with purdy

Questions about purdy

What does purdy mean?
Purdy means a surname from Norman.
What is purdy the pronunciation spelling of?
Purdy is the pronunciation spelling of pretty.
What part of speech is purdy?
Purdy is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce purdy?
Purdy is pronounced /ˈpɜɹ.di/.

Words near purdy in the dictionary

  1. Purdons
  2. Purdue
  3. Purdues
  4. Purdum
  5. Purdums
  6. purdy
  7. Purdys
  8. pure
  9. pure air
  10. pure and simple
  11. pure as driven snow

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purdy (page history and authors); Purdy (page history and authors); pretty (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-purdy.ogg.

Cite this entry: “purdy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purdy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.