Starch

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. 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.

2. Fig.: A stiff, formal manner; formality. Addison. Starch hyacinth (Bot.), the grape hyacinth; -- so called because the flowers have the smell of boiled starch. See under Grape.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To stiffen with starch.

Part of speech: adjective (a.)

Stiff; precise; rigid. [R.] Killingbeck.