starch

Meanings

Noun

• 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.
• Carbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.
• A stiff, formal manner; formality.
• Fortitude.
• Any of various starch-like substances used as a laundry stiffener

Verb

• To apply or treat with laundry starch, to create a hard, smooth surface.

Adjective

• Stiff; precise; rigid.

Origin

• From Middle English starche, sterche, from Old English *stierċe, from Proto-West Germanic *starkī, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sterg-. Cognate with dialectal Dutch sterk, Middle Low German sterke, German Stärke, Swedish stärkelse, Icelandic sterkja. Related to English stark.