Can something be "prettyful"?

[mjr]

If not, why not?

I mean, if we have "beautiful", and that essentially means "full of beauty", then couldn't we have "prettyful", and have it basically mean "full of pretty"?

[EricKei]

Well, Urban Dictionary has it, and google tells me that someone submitted it to Webster's...a decade ago :_: Defined as either "somewhere between pretty and beautiful" and "very pretty or very beautiful" ... I vote yes! ^_^

Heck, it sounds legit enough to me. The opposite process has even brought us modern words -- e.g. "awful" used to be "aweful" -- meaning, "full of awe [for God]." In Old T terms, that could certainly imply a certain level of fear, which could explain why the modern term refers to something one has an intense dislike for/fear of (because, let's face it, the two often go hand in hand).

[Kit-Ginevra]

I don't see why not.It's a perfectly cromulent word....

[MoonCat]

Well, technically, it's because "beauty" is a noun, and "pretty" is an adjective, but anything goes these days, and that's how language evolves, so wth

[KuariKaydrith]

I saw 'prettyful' in a few early modern English texts I transcribed back in my university days, so it was used at one time. I'd say that over years it fell out of regular usage and was dropped, like a good many fun archaic words. English seems to have been getting somewhat dumbed down over the years, and even more so with so many people using text/chat speak. I'm almost certain that in another ten years that using text/chat speak in university essays will actually be permissible!

[Ironclad Alibi]

If "beauty" becomes "beautiful", shouldn't "pretty" become "prettiful"?

Anyway, "pretty full" has another meaning referring to the contents of a container. For example, "That box is pretty full."

[dalesys]

... For example, "That box is pretty full."

Or, "I'd like to pretty fill ..."