starch - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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”).

starch (countable and uncountable, plural starches)

  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.
    Hypernyms: polysaccharide < carbohydrate
    Hyponyms: cornstarch, hydroxypropyl starch, modified starch, potato starch, tapioca starch, tous-les-mois starch, wheat starch
    Meronym: saccharide
    Coordinate terms: sugar; glycogen; cellulose
    • 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[1], Revised edition, Michigan: Health Publishing Company, page 25:
      The various elements found in food are the following: Starch, sugar, fats, albumen, mineral substances, indigestible substances.
  2. (nutrition, countable) Carbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.
  3. (uncountable) A stiff, formal manner; formality.
    • 1712 March 1 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “TUESDAY, 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:
      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.
    • 2017, Dean Koontz, The Silent Corner, page 98:
      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.

substance

carbohydrates

stiff manner

laundry stiffener

starch (third-person singular simple present starches, present participle starching, simple past and past participle starched)

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

apply laundry starch

starch (not comparable)

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

stiff

starch

  1. strong
  2. loud