sedater

Adjective

sedate (comparative more sedate or sedater, superlative most sedate or sedatest)

1. Of a person or animal, or their behaviour: calm and composed (often in a dignified manner), and avoiding or unaffected by activity or excitement.
   • [I]f they vvill 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, either yielding nothing, or ſuffering a licentious practice of all things; vve muſt put them in mind of that...1642, Ri[chard] Watson, A Sermon Touching Schisme, Lately Preached at St. Maries in Cambridge, [Cambridge, Cambridgeshire]: […] Roger Daniel, printer to the Universitie of Cambridge […]; [a]nd are to...

   Synonyms:

   collected, cool, placid, staid, unruffled, calm, steady, composed, cool-headed, equable

   Antonyms:

   unsedate

2. (broadly) Of an object, particularly a building: not overly ornate or showy; not having a strong colour or design.
   • 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 […] until her mind was dizzied with the monotony.1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 6, in Orlando: A Biography, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, page 275

   Synonyms:

   unobtrusive

   Antonyms:

   obtrusive

3. (broadly) Of writing: not emotional; calm, composed.
4. (broadly, obsolete) Of one's mind, thoughts, etc.: calm, sober.
   • [A] Scepticiſm, that's the only vvay to Science. But yet this is ſo difficult in the impartial and exact performance, that it may be vvell reckon'd among the bare Poſsibilities, vvhich never commence into a Futurity: It requiring ſuch a free, ſedate, and intent minde, as it may be no vvhere found...1661, Joseph Glanvill, “A Third Reason of Our Ignorance and Error, viz. the Impostures and Deceits of Our Senses. […]”, in The Vanity of Dogmatizing: Or Confidence in Opinions. […], London: […] E....
5. (broadly, obsolete) Of an object: not moving; at rest, quiet, still; also, moving smoothly and steadily.
   • [T]he river vvhich before vvas ſtraight, ſhe [Nitocris] made crooked vvith great vvindings, that it might be more ſedate and leſs apt to overflovv.a. 1728 (date written), Isaac Newton, “Of the Two Contemporary Empires of the Babylonians and Medes”, in The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson […], and J[ohn]...

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