English Dictionary

PRETTILY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does prettily mean? 

PRETTILY (adverb)
  The adverb PRETTILY has 1 sense:

1. in a pretty mannerplay

  Familiarity information: PRETTILY used as an adverb is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


PRETTILY (adverb)


Sense 1

Meaning:

In a pretty manner

Context example:

all this is most prettily done

Pertainym:

pretty (pleasing by delicacy or grace; not imposing)


 Context examples 


Walk home!—you are prettily shod for walking home, I dare say.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Very well indeed!—how prettily she writes!—aye, that was quite proper to let him be off if he would.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Yes, she does it very prettily, and never seems to go too far.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Yes, sir, said he, this is the spot, to be sure, and very prettily drawed out.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

When the Scarecrow had bowed, as prettily as his straw stuffing would let him, before this beautiful creature, she looked upon him sweetly, and said: I am Oz, the Great and Terrible.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Poor little soul! she could but just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, 'Let sister Susan have my knife, mama, when I am dead and buried.'

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She looked at him, prettily puzzled, for she did not quite like the persistence with which he clung to his notion.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It was a prettily furnished room, with a piano and some lively furniture in red and green, and some flowers.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,—tall, fair, blue- eyed, and with a Grecian profile.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"A rolling stone gathers no moss." (English proverb)

"You cannot hunt with a tied dog." (Albanian proverb)

"A mountain won't get to a mountain, but a human will get to a human." (Armenian proverb)

"One swats the fly only if it annoys that person." (Cypriot proverb)



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