I am aware that there are plenty of threads on intensifiers(very, rather, pretty, quite, fairly, etc.), both on this site and on the web, because of their ambiguity in terms of meaning. What I have learned is that their meaning can change depending on which country you are from, which context they are used, or your intonation. So instead of comparing all intensifiers, I decided to make my question more specific. I chose to focus on the word pretty because of its "common" usage.
So as we can see, the word pretty has two meanings and unfortunately they are "pretty" opposite. My question is can you tell me, just by taking into account the example sentences below, in which sentences "pretty" means "fairly,", and in which it means "very?"
Does "Tom looks pretty tired" always mean "Tom looks a little/fairly tired" ?
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/pretty