starch

noun

1. (uncountable)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. (countable)Carbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.
3. (uncountable)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. (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.”

5. (countable)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”

verb

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

   “She starched her blouses.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Stiff; precise; rigid.

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