staid

Adjective

staid (comparative staider, superlative staidest)

1. Not capricious or impulsive; sedate, serious, sober.
   • Put thy ſelfe / Into a hauiour of leſſe feare, ere wildneſſe / Vanquiſh my ſtayder Senſes.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
   • The hours of study, the hours of recreation, the sports, the pastimes, the casualties, which in the staider years of life pass without note or comment, alike are wrapped and muffled in the one roseate haze.1835, [Louisa Sidney Stanhope], chapter III, in Sydney Beresford. A Tale of the Day. … In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, […], →OCLC, pages 70–71

   Synonyms:

   composed, dignified, regular, steady, austere, frightful, demure, serious, grave, earnest

   Antonyms:

   fanciful, unpredictable, volatile, wild

2. (rare) Always fixed in the same location; stationary.
   • 'Tis not age or height alone / Can secure the staidest throne / From the reach of Change or Death,— […]1814, Leigh Hunt, The Descent of Liberty, a Mask, London: […] Gale, Curtis, and Fenner, […], published 1815, →OCLC, scene III, page 42
   • [I]n a common sailor's life sleep is not a regular thing as we have it on shore, and perhaps that staid glazy and sedate-looking eye, which a hard-worked seaman usually has, is really caused by broken slumber. He is never completely awake, but he is never entirely asleep.1867, John MacGregor, chapter II, in The Voyage Alone in the Yawl “Rob Roy,” from London to Paris, and back by Havre, the Isle of Wight, South Coast, &c., London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, […]...