sedate
Americanadjective
verb (used with object)
-
sedates,
present (3rd person singular)
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sedated,
past participle, past
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sedating
present participle
adjective
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habitually calm and composed in manner; serene
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staid, sober, or decorous
verb
Synonym Usage
See staid.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sedatesimple
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sedatessimple
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have sedatedperfect
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has sedatedperfect
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am sedatingprogressive
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are sedatingprogressive
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is sedatingprogressive
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have been sedatingperfect progressive
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has been sedatingperfect progressive
Past
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sedatedsimple
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had sedatedperfect
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was sedatingprogressive
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were sedatingprogressive
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had been sedatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sedate
First recorded in 1640–50; from Latin sēdātus (past participle of sēdāre “to allay, quieten”); akin to sedēre “to sit”; see sit 1
Explanation
Sedate means to be calm, but if a doctor sedates you it means you've been administered a tranquilizing drug. Most surgeries require some form of sedation, but to be sedate in day-to-day life means composed, quiet, and serene. Not necessarily unconscious. To be sedate when dining with the Queen means that you behaved with dignity and solemnity. To be sedated when dining with the Queen means that you were face down in the bread pudding and drooling onto the tablecloth. The medical sense of the word is to be tranquilized, either to calm your nerves after a shock or in preparation for surgery. Socially, to be sedate is to be serene, quiet, and composed.
Vocabulary lists containing sedate
A Separate Peace
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Mellow Out: Synonyms for "Calm"
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National Nurses Week: Tasks and Equipment
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Nursing homes have a powerful incentive to sedate residents, and comparatively few people are watching.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 7, 2026
In the low-key and sedate drama “Midwinter Break,” a married couple who have been together a very long time treat each other with nothing but love, tenderness and respect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026
There was another two-star review from the Guardian's Arifa Akbar, who said the show's atmosphere is "sedate", with "no peril whatsoever".
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2026
Distinguished by different hairdos and contrasting body language, Douglas, who can will himself to appear sedate, and James, who’s in a continual manic spiral, have more in common than either would care to admit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2026
The house—for the most part designed by Mr. Clutter, who thereby proved himself a sensible and sedate, if not notably decorative, architect—had been built in 1948 for forty thousand dollars.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
Patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s or mild cognitive impairment will quickly find that lecanemab is not a neurological medication that sedates, stimulates or dampens pain.
From Scientific American ● Jan. 27, 2023
To determine if a sturgeon is female, a worker first sedates the fish in a trough with a small electric current.
From The Guardian ● May 14, 2018
Sedation may be needed, for example, if a 3-year-old requires root canals for badly decayed molars or has a throbbing abscess, said Dr. Casamassimo, who sedates children at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.
From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2017
Later, as the news spreads with the virus and terror propels the population into rabid belligerence, the movie sedates its pulse, softens its focus and threatens to become a straightfaced Zombieland.
From Time ● Sep. 4, 2011
A careful, perhaps too conventional interpretation of a play that sheds less light on its subject than it does on the mind of Playwright Bernard Shaw, who sometimes dates but never sedates.
From Time Magazine Archive
But they do not have access to some of the equipment the hospital has, or the ability to provide some of the services it provides, such as CT scans and sedated intubation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026
Others worry about the invasiveness of a colonoscopy and undergoing anesthesia or are too sick with a chronic disease to be sedated.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 4, 2026
In a recent study, researchers placed electrodes across the scalps of sedated patients, capturing their brain-wave data.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
The patient is sedated and covered up on the operating table.
From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2025
She was out front with the sedated bonobos, where Patrice had told me Otto couldn’t go.
From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer
And while sedating antihistamines like diphenhydramine might help you sleep at night, they don't treat the cough itself.
From BBC ● Dec. 3, 2025
In the operating room, before they began sedating me, I heard the surgeon enter the room, take a look at the pacemaker, and pronounce that it was the wrong model.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2024
"We know that nursing homes with lower staffing levels use more antipsychotics. These medications may be compensating for understaffing by sedating residents instead of having adequate staff to support their needs," said Travers.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 24, 2024
Several bills in Congress aim to tighten use of xylazine without limiting its legitimate use in sedating horses, sheep and other animals.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 11, 2023
What is then given should have the power of sedating the nervous fluids, while it disseminates through the viscera the elements of nutrition.
From A Treatise on Foreign Teas Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, Entitled An Essay On the Nerves by Smith, Hugh
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
