pretty much

Sorry, mates, probably it's a very basic question, but I'm not sure to take in the use of "pretty much" in the next sentences. We are talking about meeting for a musical rehearsal:

"I can pretty much make any time"

"I can't make the rehearsal, as I have to be at (somewhere) pretty
much all of Sunday because of (something)"

Thanks in advance

The phrase 'pretty much' or 'pretty well' is informal speech for 'almost'.

Hmm, I use the phrase a bit differently, to imply entirety in most contexts, though I can see its meaning overlapping with "almost." I would use the word "basically" as a synonym:

"There's pretty much nothing that I can't do;" "There's basically nothing that I can't do"...I guess it is like saying there's nothing that I'm aware of that I can't do but there may by some small chance be something that escapes my ability, in that way it's like "almost" but unproven, if that makes sense. That's a versatile phrase, though, and my explanation just covers this one usage.

Un saludo

I agree with viajero. "basically."
👁 Smile :)

Yeah, if you're saying "I can pretty much make any time" in the sense that an event can be planned whenever on a certain day because your schedule is open as far as you know then "pretty much" implies that you can't think of any reason why you couldn't come, but it's as if there's still a tiny chance that that could change when you learned when the event would actually take place.
"Pretty much" is also a way of making something sound modest: "I've pretty much mastered the oboe" doesn't come off quite as flaunty, if that's even a word. Arrogant, I mean. I also use "pretty much" often colloquially: "How are you?" "Oh, pretty much awesome, you?"