Etymology 1
From Middle English staately, staatly, stateli, statelie, stately, statelyche, statelye, statli, statly; equivalent to state + -ly. Compare stour.
Adjective
stately (comparative statelier, superlative stateliest)
- (of people) Worthy of respect; dignified, regal.
- (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, 20:43 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN), archived from the original on 4 December 2022: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.
- 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, 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.
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, […], →OCLC, pages 271–272:Their stately offices—their pleasant gardens—the magnificent cloisters constructed for their recreation, were all dilapidated and ruinous; […]
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.