Definition of "stately"
stately
adjective
comparative statelier, superlative stateliest
(of movement) Deliberate, unhurried; dignified.
Quotations
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.
2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 20:43 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 4 December 2022
Quotations
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. […], published 1816, page 55
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 John Ballantyne, […], pages 271–272