Stiff; precise; rigid. [R.] Killingbeck.
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.
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.
To stiffen with starch.
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