starch

plural starches

1. uncountableA widely diffused vegetable substance, found 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.

   Meronym: saccharide

   1 more example

   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. countablenutritionCarbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.
3. uncountableA stiff, formal manner; formality.

   this Professor is to give the society their stiffening, and infuse into their manners that beautiful political starch, which may qualify them for Levées, Conferences, Visits

   1712 February 29 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, February 19, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 305; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume IV, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC

4. uncountableFortitude.

   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. countableAny of various starch-like substances used as a laundry stiffener.

   You're the starch in my collar / You're the lace in my shoe / You will always be my necessity / I'd be lost without you

   1928, “You're the Cream in My Coffee”, Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown (lyrics)

present singular third person starches · participle present starching · participle past starched · past starched

1. transitiveTo apply or treat with laundry starch, in order to create a hard, smooth surface.

   She starched her blouses.

1. not comparableStiff; 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