sedate

sedate

English

Etymology

From Latin sedatus, past participle of sedare (“to settle”), causative of sedere (“to sit”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sɪˈdeɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /səˈdeɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪt

Adjective

sedate (comparative more sedate, superlative most sedate)

1. (of a person or their behaviour) Remaining composed and dignified, and avoiding too much activity or excitement.

   Synonyms: placid, staid, unruffled

   • 1642, Richard Watson, A Sermon Touching Schisme, Cambridge: Roger Daniel, p. 27,

     […] they will rashly huddle up all together, and not admitting the least check of a sedate judgement, publish onely the impetuous dictates of their indiscreet and too precipitant fancie […]

   • 1715, Homer; [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book 3”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], OCLC 670734254, lines 87-88, page 5:

     But who like thee can boast a Soul sedate,
     So firmly Proof to all the Shocks of Fate?

   • 1886, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Chapter 16,

     A reel or fling of some sort was in progress; and the usually sedate 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, Fludd, New York: Henry Holt, 2000, Chapter 9, p. 149,

     Then she saw that they were waving their handkerchiefs; dipping them up and down, with a curiously sedate, formal motion.

2. (of an object, particularly a building) Not overly ornate or showy.
   • 1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 6, in Orlando: A Biography, London: The Hogarth Press, OCLC 154641284; republished as Orlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, July 2015:

     Sometimes she passed down avenues of sedate 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, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, OCLC 1049770437; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944, OCLC 20350211:

     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 the sedate dwellings of older citizens.

   • 1942, Emily Carr, “Grown Up”, in The Book of Small:

     Facing the Parliament Buildings across James’ Bay arose a sedate stone and cement Post Office.

   • 1985, Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 352

     The great hotel, with its look of sedate luxury, brooded massively there with people teeming about it.

Derived terms

• sedately
• sedateness

Translations

in a composed and temperate state

Bulgarian: спокоен (bg) (spokoen), уравновесен (bg) (uravnovesen) Finnish: rauhallinen (fi), tyyni (fi), hillitty (fi) Irish: státúil Latin: sēdātus Slovak: pokojný (sk)

Verb

sedate (third-person singular simple present sedates, present participle sedating, simple past and past participle sedated)

1. To calm or put (a person) to sleep using a sedative drug.

   Synonym: tranquilize

   • 1990, J. M. Coetzee, Age of Iron, New York: Random House, Chapter 2, p. 80,

     Though he may have been sedated, he knew I was there, knew who I was, knew I was talking to him.

2. To make tranquil.

   Synonyms: calm, soothe, tranquilize

Related terms

• resedate
• sedation
• sedative

Translations

to calm or put to sleep using a sedative drug

Catalan: sedar (ca) Finnish: rauhoittaa (fi), antaa rauhoittavia German: sedieren (de) Italian: sedare (it) Portuguese: sedar Spanish: sedar (es)

to make tranquil

Catalan: tranquil·litzar (ca) Finnish: rauhoittaa (fi) German: ruhig stellen Italian: sedare (it) Latin: sēdō Portuguese: tranquilizar (pt) Spanish: tranquilizar (es)

Further reading

• sedate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• sedate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• sedate at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• e-dates, seated, steade, teades, teased

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Italian

Verb

sedate

1. inflection of sedare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Participle

sedate f pl

1. feminine plural of sedato

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Latin

Verb

sēdāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of sēdō

References

• “sedate”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “sedate”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• sedate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette