pretty much

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.

   • 2018 December 1, Drachinifel, 11:37 from the start, in Anti-Slavery Patrols - The West Africa Squadron‎, archived from the original on 29 November 2024:

     Although British involvement in the slave trade prior to 1807 cannot be denied, or its effects diminished, it is also a fact that the Royal Navy was pretty much the only force in the world in the 19th century with the numbers, drive, willingness, firepower, and capability to curtail the global slave trade, and that, without these efforts, many more would no doubt have been taken to slave plantations and other such destinations during the 19th, and possibly even into the 20th, centuries, as it must be remembered that a great many European powers would only begrudgingly commit to ending the slave trade when the other option was continuous war with the British Empire.

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