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A genus of herbaceous plants with pretty salver-shaped corollas, usually blue or violet; leadwort.

word of contempt. And for mine own poor part, Look you, I'll go pray. Shak. Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing. Prior.

In a pretty manner.

The quality or state of being pretty; -- used sometimes in a disparaging sense. A style . . . without sententious pretension or antithetical prettiness. Jeffrey.

stance. -- Quaker ladies (Bot.), a low American biennial plant (Houstonia cærulea), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called bluets, and little innocents.

I shall appear at the masquerade dressed up in my feathers, that the quality may see how pretty they will look in their traveling habits. Addison.

Bitterness; disappointment; grief; regret. Goat's rue. See under Goat. -- Rue anemone, a pretty springtime flower (Thalictrum anemonides) common in the United States. -- Wall rue, a little fern (Asplenium Ruta-muraria) common on walls in Europe.

not this scantling; -- to be solace to the sovereign and harmless to the people. Bacon. A pretty scantling of his knowledge may taken by his deferring to be baptized so many years. Milton.

A little person or creature engaged in sports or in play. When again the lambkins play --Pretty sportlings, full of May. Philips.

) (Bot.) Any plant of the genus Claytonia, delicate herbs with somewhat fleshy leaves and pretty blossoms, appearing in springtime. (b) (Zoöl.) A small, elegant American butterfly (Erora læta) which appears in spring. The hind wings of the male are brown, bordered with deep blue; those of the female are mostly blue. -…

ip. One of the closets is parqueted with plain deal, set in diamond, exceeding stanch and pretty. Evelyn.

Long and well-proportioned; nicely made; pretty. [Obs.] "Her nose tretys." Chaucer.

ower (Bot.), a delicate evergreen plant (Linnæa borealis) of northern climates, which has pretty, fragrant, pendulous flowers borne in pairs on a slender stalk. -- Twin-screw steamer, a steam vessel propelled by two screws, one on either side of the plane of the keel.

sweet wench, and gifts to boot. Chapman. He was received by the daughter of the house, a pretty, buxom, blue- eyed little wench. W. Black.

A fair lass. "This pretty whiting-mop." Massinger.