stately
/ˈsteɪtli/
stately adjective: worthy of respect; dignified, regal.
Adjective
stately (comparative statelier, superlative stateliest)
- Worthy of respect; dignified, regal.
- Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered.1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC
- Deliberate, unhurried; dignified.
- And much as they welcome his promise to repeal "don't ask, don't tell", they are dismayed by the stately pace and bungled tactics of his attempts to do so.2010 October 14, “An Own Goal on Gay Rights”, in The Economist
- At about twenty past three in the afternoon, these aircraft duly began to arrive. The cruiser Northampton was towing Hornet at a stately five knots when, out of the sky, came seven torpedo-armed aircraft. They managed to miss the barely-moving Hornet with all but one drop... but one hit was really...2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 20:43 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 04 Dec 2022
- Grand; impressive; imposing.
- In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree: / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / Through caverns measureless to man / Down to a sunless sea.1797, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream”, in Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision: The Pains of Sleep, London: […] John Murray, […], by William Bulmer and Co. […]...
- Their stately offices—their pleasant gardens—the magnificent cloisters constructed for their recreation, were all dilapidated and ruinous; […]1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and...
Adverb
stately (comparative more stately, superlative most stately)
- In a stately manner.
stately meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
stately in Tamil
- வீறார்ந்த, மதிப்பார்ந்த, ஒய்யாரமான, விழுமிய தோற்றமுடைய, கம்பீரமான
stately in Urdu
- عالیشان
stately in Bengali
- রাজকীয়, মহিমান্বিত, গম্ভীর
stately in Malayalam
- അന്തസുളള, ഉന്നതമായ, മഹിമയുളള
More languagesFewer languages
- stately in Kannada
- ಗೌರವನೀಯ, ವೈಭವೋಪೇತ, ಭವ್ಯವಾದ, ಮಲೆಪಿನ
Examples of stately in a sentence
- The cruiser Northampton was towing Hornet at a stately five knots when, out of the sky, came seven torpedo-armed aircraft.2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 20:43 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 04...
- Germany can’t afford to stick to the stately plod into decline that Merkel initiated any longer.2025 February 23, Lisa Haseldine, “Whatever happens next, Merkelism is finished”, in The Telegraph, archived from the original on 23 Feb...
- Below is the deep abyss of the Lauterbrunnen valley, and at its head a stately semi-circle of mountains, with the pyramidal Lauterbrunnen Breithorn as the centre-piece.1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 752:
- Flora is a good scout, a favourite with the jockeys on account of her stately breasts and the generous use she puts them to.1986, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], A Perfect Spy:
Forms of stately
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | statelier |
| superlative | stateliest |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more stately |
| superlative | most stately |
Origin of stately
From Middle English staately, staatly, stateli, statelie, stately, statelyche, statelye, statli, statly. Compare stour. By surface analysis, state + -ly (adjectival suffix).
From Middle English stately, statli, equivalent to state + -ly (adverbial suffix).
Words formed from stately
Phrases with stately
Questions about stately
- What does stately mean?
- Stately means worthy of respect; dignified, regal.
- What is stately in Tamil?
- Stately in Tamil is வீறார்ந்த, மதிப்பார்ந்த, ஒய்யாரமான. See Stately meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use stately in a sentence?
- The cruiser Northampton was towing Hornet at a stately five knots when, out of the sky, came seven torpedo-armed aircraft.
- What part of speech is stately?
- Stately can be an adjective or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce stately?
- Stately is pronounced /ˈsteɪtli/ (UK).
Words near stately in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: stately (page history and authors); stately (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stately (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stately (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stately (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); stately (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-stately.wav.
Cite this entry: “stately.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stately. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.