"pretty pass" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pretty passes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "pretty pass (plural pretty passes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1900, John Buchan, chapter 29, in The Half-Hearted",
          "text": "The prisoner of unknown bandits, hurried he knew not whence, a pretty pass for an adventurer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1909, John Kendrick Bangs, chapter 3, in The Autobiography of Methuselah",
          "text": "When any of his descendants chose to take him to task for the crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to what was or was not good form.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 February 15, Edward Fennell, “New migrant rules prompt City firms to worry about their own staff”, in The Times, UK, retrieved 2014-01-16",
          "text": "Things have come to a pretty pass when a highly regarded City law firm does not know whether it is employing its own staff legally.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unsatisfactory situation."
      ],
      "id": "en-pretty_pass-en-noun-P~B5feJf",
      "links": [
        [
          "unsatisfactory",
          "unsatisfactory"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated) An unsatisfactory situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pretty pass"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pretty passes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "pretty pass (plural pretty passes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English dated terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1900, John Buchan, chapter 29, in The Half-Hearted",
          "text": "The prisoner of unknown bandits, hurried he knew not whence, a pretty pass for an adventurer.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1909, John Kendrick Bangs, chapter 3, in The Autobiography of Methuselah",
          "text": "When any of his descendants chose to take him to task for the crudeness of his manners he was accustomed to look them coldly over and retort that things had come to a pretty pass when comparatively new people ventured to instruct the oldest of the old settlers as to what was or was not good form.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 February 15, Edward Fennell, “New migrant rules prompt City firms to worry about their own staff”, in The Times, UK, retrieved 2014-01-16",
          "text": "Things have come to a pretty pass when a highly regarded City law firm does not know whether it is employing its own staff legally.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unsatisfactory situation."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "unsatisfactory",
          "unsatisfactory"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated) An unsatisfactory situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pretty pass"
}