sedate
Americanadjective
verb (used with object)
adjective
-
habitually calm and composed in manner; serene
-
staid, sober, or decorous
verb
Synonym Usage
See staid.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
sedatesimple
-
sedatessimple
-
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
-
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:
Oil and gas prices have been so erratic lately that the time-honored roller-coaster metaphor now looks sedate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
Doctors were forced to sedate him and operate on him.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2026
Nursing homes have a powerful incentive to sedate residents, and comparatively few people are watching.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 7, 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
They were not rough timid people like the fisher-folk of the Hands, but true townsmen, alert and sedate.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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
Japanese authorities have sedated and captured a black bear, days after it was spotted roaming around a city near Tokyo.
From BBC ● Jun. 9, 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
“So pleased it’s been sedated and removed. Great job!” wrote one Facebook follower.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
Sometimes they were the only ones I could talk to, as their loved one lay immobilized nearby, heavily sedated or asleep.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
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
The process of sedating and capturing a rhino is complex and risky.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 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.
