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The terms "pretty nice" and "nice" can perhaps not be compared in regards to nicety.

I find "pretty nice" to be a more informal way of relaying that something is rather awesome.

In one way the adverb (?) in this example also tune the somewhat ecstatic adjective down a bit. At the same time I notice the use of, for example, "pretty nice" when it looks like the person intend to say "very nice" – which in turn is not to tune down. Can one perhaps say that "pretty nice" in general means "very nice"? (Thus nicer the nice. :P)

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    The word pretty made me confused once before and I asked about it on this website.Check it out. ell.stackexchange.com/questions/41285/…
    – Mrt
    Feb 5, 2016 at 17:50
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    @Mrt: That is a pretty nice question ...
    – user129107
    Feb 5, 2016 at 18:04
  • This site lists rather, somewhat, fairly, reasonably, moderately, comparatively, relatively, tolerably, passably, adequately, satisfactorily, decently, respectably; informal kind of, sort of as "synonyms" for pretty. It's entirely a matter of opinion (and exact context) whether quite pretty emphasizes or downplays the degree of prettiness being referred to (or indeed, is just a meaningless "noise word" idiomatically thrown in).
    – FumbleFingers
    Feb 5, 2016 at 18:45
  • OK. A dilemma here. Can I accept an answer as well as click on "That solved my problem!"?
    – user129107
    Feb 5, 2016 at 20:21
  • As it now is marked duplicate I guess I can accept as well as it being properly linked to dupe.
    – user129107
    Feb 5, 2016 at 21:14

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The answer to this is probably colloquial. In our family, yes, the term "pretty - anything", was meant to intensify the meaning of whatever the "anything" was. So, yes, "Pretty nice", or "pretty good" does in fact convey (to us) an escalation of 'awesomeness'. What we are saying is that it is exemplary!

This use of "pretty" as a quantifier, or intensifier, is not uniformly understood, at least around here. (SE U.S.) Its use is, as you pointed out, informal, and as I have explained, perhaps regional.

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