What's the difference between pretty and rather?

Pretty


Definition:

  • (superl.) Pleasing by delicacy or grace; attracting, but not striking or impressing; of a pleasing and attractive form a color; having slight or diminutive beauty; neat or elegant without elevation or grandeur; pleasingly, but not grandly, conceived or expressed; as, a pretty face; a pretty flower; a pretty poem.
  • (superl.) Moderately large; considerable; as, he had saved a pretty fortune.
  • (superl.) Affectedly nice; foppish; -- used in an ill sense.
  • (superl.) Mean; despicable; contemptible; -- used ironically; as, a pretty trick; a pretty fellow.
  • (superl.) Stout; strong and brave; intrepid; valiant.
  • (adv.) In some degree; moderately; considerably; rather; almost; -- less emphatic than very; as, I am pretty sure of the fact; pretty cold weather.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As a Native American I am pretty sensitive to charges of racism and white supremacy,” the Oklahoma congressman added.
  • (2) Not making a sound for 24 hours pretty nearly killed me.
  • (3) The conclusion is to warn the orthopaedic surgeons to look carefully what model is behind the pretty coloured results.
  • (4) It may unsettle Exxon Mobil a little but they are pretty experienced now and I don’t think they would derail anything,” she said.
  • (5) United and West Ham are on similar runs and can feel pretty happy about themselves but are not as confident away from home as they are at home and that will have to change if they are to make ground on the top teams.
  • (6) When you hear the name Jesus, is the first image that comes to mind a dewy-eyed pretty boy with flowing locks?
  • (7) We’ve got a lot of work to do but I’m feeling pretty confident.
  • (8) Some offer a range, depending on whether you think you're a bit of a buff, and know a pinot meunier from a pinot noir and what prestige cuvée actually means or you just want to see a bit of the process and have a nice glass of bubbly at the end of it, before moving on to the next place – touring a pretty corner of France getting slowly, and delightfully, fizzled.
  • (9) No one condones what happened in the 70s, but I think this is pretty appalling."
  • (10) Which is good news for anyone who likes this kind of thing (which is, let's face it, pretty much everyone.
  • (11) Woodall added: “Pretty much everything [is a potential source for what we found].
  • (12) There's no doubt Twitter is, for those who are into that kind of thing, a first-class social networking medium (the proof: pretty much every other social networking site, including Facebook, has tried to buy it and, having failed, adopted a whole raft of blatantly Twitter-like features of their own).
  • (13) Pretty much every major toy brand, as well as apps like Angry Birds and Talking Friends, are spawning “webisodes” on YouTube as well as traditional ads, which often sit side-by-side within the same channel.
  • (14) She said the UK law on assisted suicide infringed Pretty's human rights, under article two of the European convention – the right to life.
  • (15) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Terms and Conditions May Apply – trailer It’s pretty simple, really.
  • (16) Parties are a tedious chore, while sponsorships are pretty tiresome too: can you remember the key messaging about that motor oil you agreed to plug to the nearest reporter?
  • (17) Chelsea might recover under similar circumstances, but I reckon they need a pretty big overhaul.
  • (18) I’ve seen Ukip both at home and abroad, and I’m sorry to say they’re pretty amateur.
  • (19) "I have always been of the view that it is a false dichotomy, and one that is pretty much built-in by our education system unfortunately," he said this weekend.
  • (20) Facebook Twitter Pinterest A bus belching smoke in Bogotá Pretty dirty.

Rather


Definition:

  • (a.) Prior; earlier; former.
  • (a.) Earlier; sooner; before.
  • (a.) More readily or willingly; preferably.
  • (a.) On the other hand; to the contrary of what was said or suggested; instead.
  • (a.) Of two alternatives conceived of, this by preference to, or as more likely than, the other; somewhat.
  • (a.) More properly; more correctly speaking.
  • (a.) In some degree; somewhat; as, the day is rather warm; the house is rather damp.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For some time now, public opinion polls have revealed Americans' strong preference to live in comparatively small cities, towns, and rural areas rather than in large cities.
  • (2) They’re no crack force either; many are rather portly!
  • (3) It has recently been suggested that procaine penicillin existed in solution in vitro and in vivo as a "procaine - penicillin" complex rather than as dissociated ions.
  • (4) Recent data collected by the Games Outcomes Project and shared on the website Gamasutra backs up the view that crunch compounds these problems rather than solving them.
  • (5) The Cole-Moore effect, which was found here only under a specific set of conditions, thus may be a special case rather than the general property of the membrane.
  • (6) The pancreatic changes are unlikely to be an artefact, but rather a direct toxic effect of the alcohol as confirmed by the biochemical changes.
  • (7) Reactive metabolites which suppress splenic humoral immune responses are thought to be generated within the spleen rather than in distant tissues.
  • (8) These results indicate that HBV markers in cord blood are either false-positive or due to contamination by maternal blood rather than an indication of in utero infection.
  • (9) As a group, the three mammalian proteins resemble bovine serum conglutinin and behave as lectins with rather broad sugar specificities directed at certain non-reducing terminal N-acetylglucosamine, mannose, glucose and fucose residues, but with subtle differences in fine specificities.
  • (10) Several interpretations of the results are examined including the possibility that the effects of Valium use were short-lived rather than long-term and that Valium may have been taken in anticipation of anxiety rather than after its occurrence.
  • (11) Women seldom occupy higher positions in a [criminal] organisation, and are rather used for menial, but often dangerous tasks ,” it notes.
  • (12) It is time to start over with an approach to promoting wellbeing in foreign countries that is empirical rather than ideological.
  • (13) In one of the cirrhotic patients, postmortem correlation of sonographic, angiographic, and pathological findings showed that the dilated vessels seen on sonography were cystic veins draining normally into the portal vein rather than portosystemic anastomoses.
  • (14) Communicating sustainability is a subtle attempt at doing good Read more And yet, in environmental terms it is infinitely preferable to prevent waste altogether, rather than recycle it.
  • (15) Current recommendations regarding contraception in patients with diabetes are not appropriate for the adolescent population and therefore tend to support this phenomenon rather than relieve it.
  • (16) Hence the major role of the 14-A arm of carboxybiotin is not to permit a large carboxyl migration but, rather to permit carboxybiotin to traverse the gap which occurs at the interface of three subunits and to insinuate itself between the CoA and keto acid sites.
  • (17) These later results suggest that dopamine agonists increase sensorimotor reactivity measured with acoustic startle by acting on sensory rather than motor parts of the reflex arc.
  • (18) This was due to the fact that stale bread was fed ad lib, rather than concentrates.
  • (19) Rather, academics need to involve themselves in managerial roles.
  • (20) Decreased synthesis rather than increased utilization accounted for the nucleoside effect.