starch

Etymology

From Middle English starche, sterche, from Old English *stierċe (“stiffness, rigidity, strength”), from Proto-West Germanic *starkī (“stiffness, rigidity, fortitude, strength”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sterg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with dialectal Dutch sterk (“strong”), Middle Low German sterke (“strength”), German Stärke (“strength", also "starch”), Swedish stärkelse (“starch”), Icelandic sterkja (“starch”). Related to English stark (“stiff, strong, vigorous, powerful”).

noun

1. (uncountable) A widely diffused vegetable substance, found especially in seeds, bulbs and tubers, as extracted (e.g. from potatoes, corn, rice, etc.) in the form of a white, glistening, granular or powdery substance, without taste or smell, and giving a very peculiar creaking sound when rubbed between the fingers. It is used as a food, in the production of commercial grape sugar, for stiffening linen in laundries, in making paste, etc.
   The various elements found in food are the following: Starch, sugar, fats, albumen, mineral substances, indigestible substances. 1892, Ella Eaton Kellogg, “Foods”, in Science in the Kitchen: A Scientific Treatise on Food Substances and Their Dietetic Properties, Together with a Practical Explanation of the Principles of Healthful Cookery, and a Large Number of Original, Palatable, and Wholesome Recipes, Revised edition, Michigan: Health Publishing Company, page 25
2. (nutrition, countable) Carbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.
3. (uncountable) A stiff, formal manner; formality.
4. (uncountable) Fortitude.
   The thought of the gun in his back put some starch in him. He needed the handrail, and he limped step by step, but he ascended at his full height. 2017, Dean Koontz, The Silent Corner, page 98
5. (countable) Any of various starch-like substances used as a laundry stiffener

verb

1. To apply or treat with laundry starch, to create a hard, smooth surface.
   She starched her blouses.

adj

1. Stiff; precise; rigid.
   misrepresenting Sobriety as a Starch and Formal, and Vertue as a Laborious and Slavish thing 1713, John Killingbeck, Eighteen sermons on practical subjects