I've searched online and all that I can find is that they both mean "around".
What do they mean? When do you use だいたい? When do you use くらい?
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question
word-choice
「だいたい」と「くらい」の違い
What dictionary are you using? Does the dictionary not list other English
translations?

I have two suggestions:

  * Look at all the translations all together. That will often give you a general sense of what the word means.
  * Look at the example sentences. Online dictionaries like jisho.org provide example sentences that illustrate how the words are used.

I have a preference for the written word and trust online sources less than
what's printed. If you have a print dictionary, the two points above will not
likely lead you astray. The editors of print dictionaries (particularly the
dictionaries for native Japanese speakers) put considerable time into writing
up the entries and providing illustrative example sentences of usage. The
thing is you don't have to be a native speaker to find these dictionaries
useful. I used these dictionaries from the get-go when I barely knew much
Japanese at all.

Online dictionaries sometime cull their example sentences in ways that are
less than helpful. Generally, it appears, no thought was put into the example
sentences (after all that's resource intense work). That said, jisho seems to
do generally a good job.

Of course, if you look up くらい you'll discover it has quite a variety of
meanings: from _dark_ to _position/rank_ to _approximately_. As always with
Japanese, context will drive this.

Also, keep in mind that _about_ itself has very broad applications and its
meaning in English is not very precise but more or less determined by context.

Look at these entries in jisho and their associated example sentences:

  * [くらい](https://jisho.org/word/%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89%E3%81%84) and [a collection of example sentences](https://jisho.org/search/%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89%E3%81%84%20%23sentences)

  * [だいたい](https://jisho.org/word/%E5%A4%A7%E4%BD%93) and [a collection of example sentences](https://jisho.org/search/%E5%A4%A7%E4%BD%93%20%23sentences)
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answer