staid
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /steɪd/
ipa: /sted/
rhymes: -eɪd
homophone: stade
homophone: stayed stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
Forms: form: staider
form: staidest
Etymology: From an obsolete spelling of stayed, the past participle of stay, used as an adjective.
Senses: examples: text: Put thy ſelfe / Into a hauiour of leſſe feare, ere wildneſſe / Vanquiſh my ſtayder Senſes.
ref: 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 382, column 2:
text: The hours of study, the hours of recreation, the sports, the pastimes, the casualties, which in the staider years of life pass without note or comment, alike are wrapped and muffled in the one roseate haze.
ref: 1835, [Louisa Sidney Stanhope], chapter III, in Sydney Beresford. A Tale of the Day. … In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, […], →OCLC, pages 70–71:
text: As for Peter, he was the happiest of the happy, and had sung and whistled so joyously while skating that the staidest passers-by had smiled as they listened.
ref: 1866, M[ary] E[lizabeth] Dodge [i.e., Mary Mapes Dodge], “A Catastrophe”, in Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates. A Story of Life in Holland, New York, N.Y.: James O’Kane, […], →OCLC, page 97:
text: He wondered what had become of the boys who were his companions: they were nearly thirty now; some would be dead, but others were married and had children; they were soldiers and parsons, doctors, lawyers; they were staid men who were beginning to put youth behind them. Had any of them made such a hash of life as he?
ref: 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter CXII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, pages 594–595:
text: I was just thinking that it's sure been a long time since you've pulled one of your great practical jokes. You've gotten downright boring lately, Cody. Staid, even.
ref: 1996, Gina Ferris Wilkins, chapter 1, in Cody’s Fiancée (Silhouette Special Edition; 1006), New York, N.Y.: Silhouette, →ISBN; republished Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin, 2013, →ISBN:
text: Meetings between Pakistani and American leaders are traditionally staid and predictable, although some Pakistanis are fond of recalling an apocryphal 1963 exchange between John F. Kennedy and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – father of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to whom [Asif Ali] Zardari was married. Impressed by the then Foreign Minister, who would become Prime Minister before being deposed by a U.S.-backed military dictator in 1977 and later executed, Kennedy is alleged to have said, "If you were an American, you would be in my Cabinet." Bhutto is alleged to have answered, "Be careful, Mr. President. If I were an American, you would be in my Cabinet."
ref: 2008 September 26, Omar Waraich, “How Sarah Palin Rallied Pakistan’s Feminists”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Warner Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 May 2017:
ref: 2021 February 9, “he Tom Hanks's made five movies with Spielberg and several with both Ron Howard and Robert Zemeckis, all admirable but often staid filmmakers with a professed love of the Capra-esque.”, in BBC:
synonyms: word: composed
word: dignified
word: regular
word: steady
word: austere
word: frightful
word: demure
word: serious
word: grave
word: earnest
word: grievous
word: lack-laughter
word: thoughtful
word: sad
word: sage
word: saturnine
word: sedate
word: solemn
word: solemncholy
word: sober
word: somber
word: sombre
word: staid
word: stern
word: sweer
word: weightsome
word: weighty
word: abstemious
word: calm
word: collected
word: composed
word: continent
word: cool
word: dispassionate
word: inexcitable
word: imperturbable
word: regular
word: sedate
word: sober
word: steady
word: staid
word: temperate
word: undisturbed
word: unexcitable
word: unexcited
word: unimpassioned
word: unpassionate
word: unperturbed
word: unruffled
word: unstirred
word: unsusceptible
antonyms: fanciful
unpredictable
volatile
wild
glosses: Not capricious or impulsive; sedate, serious, sober.
examples: text: 'Tis not age or height alone / Can secure the staidest throne / From the reach of Change or Death,— […]
ref: 1814, Leigh Hunt, The Descent of Liberty, a Mask, London: Printed for Gale, Curtis, and Fenner, […], published 1815, →OCLC, scene III, page 42:
text: [I]n a common sailor's life sleep is not a regular thing as we have it on shore, and perhaps that staid glazy and sedate-looking eye, which a hard-worked seaman usually has, is really caused by broken slumber. He is never completely awake, but he is never entirely asleep.
ref: 1867, John MacGregor, chapter II, in The Voyage Alone in the Yawl “Rob Roy,” from London to Paris, and back by Havre, the Isle of Wight, South Coast, &c., London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, […], →OCLC, page 37:
glosses: Always fixed in the same location; stationary.
Derived terms: staidly
staidness
unstaid