FromLatinsēdātus,perfectpassiveparticiple ofsēdō(“to settle”), see-ate(adjective-forming suffix).
sedate (comparativemoresedateorsedater,superlativemostsedateorsedatest)
- (of a person or their behaviour) Remainingcomposed anddignified, and avoiding too muchactivity orexcitement.
- Synonyms:placid,staid,unruffled;see alsoThesaurus:calm,Thesaurus:serious
1642, Richard Watson,A Sermon Touching Schisme[1], Cambridge: Roger Daniel, page27:[…] they will rashly huddle up all together, and not admitting the least check of asedate judgement, publish onely the impetuous dictates of their indiscreet and too precipitant fancie[…]
1715,Homer, translated byAlexander Pope, “Book 3”, inThe Iliad of Homer, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, forBernard Lintott […],→OCLC,page 5, lines87-88:But who like thee can boast a Soulsedate,
So firmly Proof to all the Shocks of Fate?
1886,Thomas Hardy, chapter 16, inThe Mayor of Casterbridge[2]:A reel or fling of some sort was in progress; and the usuallysedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinning to the tune.
1989,Hilary Mantel, chapter 9, inFludd[3], New York: Henry Holt, published2000, page149:Then she saw that they were waving their handkerchiefs; dipping them up and down, with a curiouslysedate, formal motion.
- (of an object, particularly a building) Notoverlyornate orshowy.
- Synonym:unobtrusive
- Antonym:obtrusive
1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter6, inOrlando: A Biography, London:The Hogarth Press,→OCLC; republished asOrlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia:Project Gutenberg Australia,July 2015:Sometimes she passed down avenues ofsedate mansions, soberly numbered ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, and so on right up to two or three hundred, each the copy of the other, with two pillars and six steps and a pair of curtains neatly drawn[…]
1936 June 30,Margaret Mitchell, chapter 37, inGone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company,→OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company,1944,→OCLC:The shiny carriages of Yankee officers’ wives and newly rich Carpetbaggers splashed mud on the dilapidated buggies of the townspeople, and gaudy new homes of wealthy strangers crowded in among thesedate dwellings of older citizens.
1985,Doris Lessing,The Good Terrorist[4], London: Jonathan Cape, page352:The great hotel, with its look ofsedate luxury, brooded massively there with people teeming about it.
in a composed and temperate state
FromLatinsēdātus, seeEtymology 1 an-ate(verb-forming suffix).
sedate (third-person singular simple presentsedates,present participlesedating,simple past and past participlesedated)
- Tocalm or put (a person) tosleep using asedativedrug.
- Synonym:tranquilize
1990,J. M. Coetzee, chapter 2, inAge of Iron[5], New York: Random House, page80:Though he may have beensedated, he knew I was there, knew who I was, knew I was talking to him.
- To maketranquil.
- Synonyms:calm,soothe,tranquilize
to calm or put to sleep using a sedative drug
- “sedate”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney,Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “sedate”, inThe Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.:The Century Co.,→OCLC.
- “sedate”, inOneLook Dictionary Search.
sedate
- inflection ofsedare:
- second-personpluralpresentindicative
- second-personpluralimperative
sedate f pl
- feminineplural ofsedato
sēdāte
- second-personpluralpresentactiveimperative ofsēdō
- “sedate”, inCharlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879)A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “sedate”, inCharlton T. Lewis (1891)An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- sedate inGaffiot, Félix (1934)Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
sedate
- second-personsingular voseoimperative ofsedar combined withte
