Starch

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language

·adj Stiff; precise; rigid.

II. Starch ·vt To stiffen with starch.

III. Starch ·noun Fig.: A stiff, formal manner; formality.

IV. Starch ·noun A widely diffused vegetable substance found especially in seeds, bulbs, and tubers, and extracted (as from potatoes, corn, rice, ·etc.) as 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.