stately

From state +‎ -ly. Compare stour.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsteɪtli/

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stately (comparative statelier, superlative stateliest)

1. (of people) Worthy of respect; dignified, regal.
   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, “chapter I”, in The House Behind the Cedars:

     Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered.

2. (of movement) Deliberate, unhurried; dignified.
   • 2010 October 14, “An Own Goal on Gay Rights”, in The Economist:

     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.

   • 2021 February 3, Drachinifel, Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN)‎, archived from the original on 4 December 2022, retrieved 11 December 2022, 20:43 from the start:

     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 all that it took, the location causing additional damage to the stricken carrier and demolishing most of the repairs that had been made to the earlier damage.

3. Grand; impressive; imposing.
   • 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. […], published 1816, OCLC 1380031, page 55:

     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.

   • 1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 752:

     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.

   • 1986, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], A Perfect Spy:

     Flora is a good scout, a favourite with the jockeys on account of her stately breasts and the generous use she puts them to.

• stately home

stately (comparative more stately, superlative most stately)

1. In a stately manner.

• Sattley, stylate