Definition of "sedate"

[…] they will 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 […]

1642, Richard Watson, A Sermon Touching Schisme‎, Cambridge: Roger Daniel, page 27

But who like thee can boast a Soul sedate,So firmly Proof to all the Shocks of Fate?

1715, Homer, [Alexander] Pope, transl., “Book 3”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], page 5, lines 87-88

A reel or fling of some sort was in progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinning to the tune.

1886, Thomas Hardy, chapter 16, in The Mayor of Casterbridge‎

Then she saw that they were waving their handkerchiefs; dipping them up and down, with a curiously sedate, formal motion.

1989, Hilary Mantel, chapter 9, in Fludd‎, New York: Henry Holt, published 2000, page 149

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 […]

1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 6, in Orlando: A Biography, London: The Hogarth Press; republished as Orlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, July 2015

The shiny carriages of Yankee officers’ wives and newly rich Carpetbaggers splashed mud on the dilapidated buggies of the townspeople, and gaudy new homes of wealthy strangers crowded in among the sedate dwellings of older citizens.

1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter 37, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; republished New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 1944,

Facing the Parliament Buildings across James’ Bay arose a sedate stone and cement Post Office.

1942, Emily Carr, “Grown Up”, in The Book of Small

The great hotel, with its look of sedate luxury, brooded massively there with people teeming about it.

1985, Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist‎, London: Jonathan Cape, page 352

Though he may have been sedated, he knew I was there, knew who I was, knew I was talking to him.

1990, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 2, in Age of Iron‎, New York: Random House, page 80