starchnoun/ˈstɑːt͡ʃ/

• 1

  A 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
  • The various elements found in food are the following: Starch, sugar, fats, albumen, mineral substances, indigestible substances.
• 2

  Carbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.

• 3

  A 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
• 4

  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.
• 5

  Any 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

starchverb/ˈstɑːt͡ʃ/

• 1

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

  • She starched her blouses.

starchadj/ˈstɑːt͡ʃ/

• 1

  Stiff; precise; rigid.

  • misrepresenting Sobriety as a Starch and Formal, and Vertue as a Laborious and Slavish thing