[f. STATELY a. + -NESS.]
† 1. Haughtiness, arrogance. Obs.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys, 90. Suche as foloweth shamefull wantonnes, Ungoodly luste, and statelynes of mynde.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge, I. 1860. Pryde, statelenes, and sensualyte Were not in her founde.
1530. Palsgr., 275/2. Statelynesse, arrogance, bourgoisie.
1582. Bentley, Mon. Matrones, 96. Thou hast meekened me,… to put from me all manner of presumption, and statelinesse of hart.
1644. Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 33. Did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, then the barbarick pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness.
2. Lofty dignity of manner or behavior. Sometimes with unfavorable notion: Repellent dignity, stiffness or formality of manners.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. ii. (Sommer), 103 b. It pleased the Princesse (in whom indeede statelines shines through courtesie) to let fall some gratious looke vpon me.
1654. Cokaine, Dianea, I. 19. Her entreaties were delivered with such an inbred statelinesse, that they seemed rather commands then prayers.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 14 Jan. 1682. He told him likewise of his stateliness and difficulty of accesse.
1740. Richardson, Pamela, II. 310. They rallied him on the Stateliness of his Temper.
1828. D’Israeli, Chas. I., III. ii. 17. There was a cold reserve in his speech, and a stateliness in his habits.
1879. Morley, Burke, i. 9. A certain inborn stateliness of nature, which made him unwilling to waste thoughts on the less dignified parts of life.
† 3. Loftiness of position or rank. Also, as a title of dignity. Obs.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 332. For some haue beene aduaunced to degrees of statelynesse, through the noblenesse of their byrth.
1638. W. Lisle, Heliodorus, VII. 112. And when he came her Statelinesse [the Princess] before, They will’d him, yet he would not her adore.
4. Nobleness of proportion or design; grandeur, magnificence.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 431/1. The said dukes house of the Sauoie, to the which in beautie and statelinesse of building … there was not any other in the realme comparable.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., I. 31. Mosaike painting … composed of little square pieces of marble; gilded and coloured…: which set together, as if imbossed, present an vnexpressible statelinesse.
1748. Anson’s Voy., III. ii. 313. The stateliness, freshness, and fragrance of its woods.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), III. xii. 236. Its walls indeed crown … a height great enough to give the minster yet further stateliness in the view from the lower ground.
1914. Blackw. Mag., Feb., 243/2. To a later king it owes the tomb beneath which Hushang lies buried, a monument of amazing stateliness.
5. Imposing dignity of personal aspect or carriage.
a. 1667. Cowley, Ess., Of Greatness (1906), 429. Like a Daughter of great Jupiter for the stateliness and largeness of her person.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 76. The cock foregoes His wonted strut; and … seems to resent His alter’d gait and stateliness retrench’d.
1833. Tennyson, Eleänore, iv. How many measured words adore The full-flowing harmony Of thy swan-like stateliness Eleänore?
1885. Manch. Exam., 20 March, 8/6. His bearing had always a kind of stateliness, utterly free from pomp or pretence.
6. Loftiness of diction, dignity of style in speech or writing.
1591. Harington, Orl. Fur., Pref. ¶ iij b. Heroicall Poesie, that with her sweet statelinesse doth erect the mind.
1649. F. Roberts, Clavis Bibl., 404. The Princely statelinesse of his stile hath inclined some to believe that he [Isaiah] was of the blood-Royal.
1789. Belsham, Ess., I. xii. 231. The Spenserian stanza must be allowed to exhibit a certain air of stateliness.
1884. R. W. Church, Bacon, ix. 222. The stateliness and dignity of the Latin corresponded to the proud claims which he made for his conception of the knowledge which was to be.
