Prettiest

How to spell prettiest

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prettiest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prettiest mean?

1. adjectiveMost attractive or pleasing to look at, among a group being compared.

Prettiest in a sentence

• She chose the prettiest dress in the entire shop window.

• That garden is easily the prettiest on the whole street.

Where does prettiest come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the superlative form of 'pretty', which traces back to the Old English word prættig, meaning 'cunning', 'crafty', or 'clever', built on the noun prætt meaning a trick or wile. For centuries the sense was far from flattering, describing someone sly or devious rather than good-looking. Over the medieval period the meaning drifted gently from 'clever' to 'skilfully made', then to 'fine' or 'attractive', arriving by the 1400s at the modern idea of pleasing, dainty beauty. The word is solidly Germanic in root, related to similar Low German and Dutch forms for trickery. The spelling trap in the superlative is purely mechanical: the base ends in -y, which flips to -i before the -est ending, and the doubled t of pretty must be preserved, giving 'prettiest'.

How the word is built

• pretty (from Old English prættig: cunning, then attractive)
• -est (superlative suffix; the y becomes i before -est)