Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Tranquility.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Rest; repose; quiet; tranquillity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Rest; repose; quiet; tranquillity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun tranquillity

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a state of peace and quiet

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin quiētūdō, from Latin quiētus, resting, from past participle of quiēscere, to rest; see quiet.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Latin quiētūdō, from Latin quiētus, perfect passive participle of quiēscō ("rest").

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Examples

  • This street was not so crowded as K, and I walked along in quietude, catching my breath and congratulating myself upon my hat and my get-away.

    Road-Kids and Gay-Cats 1907

  • This street was not so crowded as K, and I walked along in quietude, catching my breath and congratulating myself upon my hat and my get-away.

    Road-Kids and Gay-Cats 1907

  • The experience has made me crave silence rather than avoid it, because it’s only in quietude that you can think, really think, and whilst it wouldn’t suit everybody, profound contemplation has certainly given me the richest hours I’ve known.

    On Silence « Tales from the Reading Room 2009

  • There is one thing more which goes a long way towards the continued health of these English ladies, and therefore towards their beauty; and that is, the quietude and perpetuity of their domestic institutions.

    Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 Harriet Beecher Stowe 1853

  • His manners possess all that unostentatious frankness, and self-possessed urbanity and quietude, that is indicative of refined feelings.

    Memoirs of 30 Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers Schoolcraft, H R 1851

  • His manners possess all that unostentatious frankness, and self-possessed urbanity and quietude, that is indicative of refined feelings.

    Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers Henry Rowe Schoolcraft 1828

  • He could not account for it, but some of the Romanies, he remarks, “to whom I have stated this circumstance have accounted for it on the supposition that the soul which at present animates my body has at some former period tenanted that of one of their people, for many among them are believers in metempsychosis and, like the followers of Bouddha, imagine that their souls by passing through an infinite number of bodies, attain at length sufficient purity to be admitted to a state of perfect rest and quietude, which is the only idea of heaven they can form.”

    George Borrow in East Anglia 1904

  • Terms such as quietude, emptiness, and simplicity favored by the Laozi describe a general ethical orientation rather than specific practices.

    Laozi Chan, Alan 2007

  • You come from an island, Sir, which has endured more than its share of strife and suffering and whose history has witnessed the ebb and flow of your national fortunes in pursuit of that quietude which is characteristic of so many parts of your lovely country, and which must have inspired William Butler Yeats in his reverie on "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" to hope:

    Emerald Isle in a Sea of Discord 1969

  • They both sat awhile in that kind of quietude which often falls between two who have stirred some deep fountain of emotion.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861 Various

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  • "Quietude of custody rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilant watch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 14

    January 27, 2007