pretty much

English

Adverb

pretty much (not comparable)

1. Almost completely; very nearly; mostly; more or less; basically.
   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter III, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 42:

     That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.

   • 1912, G. K. Chesterton, “The Separatist and Sacred Things,”, in A Miscellany of Men:

     Poets are pretty much the same everywhere in their poetry—and in their prose.

   • 2008 January 6, Ron Liddle, “Bring back British Rail, all is forgiven”, in Sunday Times, UK, retrieved 16 July 2008:

     Pretty much all of the train operating companies have announced huge fare increases.

Usage notes

• Similar in meaning to more or less; however, pretty much sometimes implies a higher or more satisfactory degree of completeness.

Translations

almost completely; very nearly; mostly

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 几乎 (zh) (jīhū), 差不多 (zh) (chàbuduō)

• Danish: stort set
• Esperanto: preskaŭ ĉiel, preskaŭ ĉiom, plejparte, kvazaŭ (eo)
• Finnish: aika lailla (fi), suurin piirtein (fi)
• French: à peu de choses près
• German: leidlich (de)
• Japanese: 多分 (ja) (tabun)
• Norwegian: mer eller mindre (no)
• Portuguese: quase isso
• Russian: практически (ru) (praktičeski), почти (ru) (počti)
• Spanish: más o menos (es)
• Swedish: i stort sett (sv)
• Ukrainian: майже́ (uk) (majžé), значно́ю мі́рою (značnóju míroju)