Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Starch

Starch (stärch), a. [AS. stearc stark, strong, rough. See Stark.] Stiff; precise; rigid. [R.] Killingbeck.

Starch, n. [From starch stiff, cf. G. stärke, fr. stark strong.] 1. (Chem.) 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.

☞ Starch is a carbohydrate, being the typical amylose, C6H10O5, and is detected by the fine blue color given to it by free iodine. It is not fermentable as such, but is changed by diastase into dextrin and maltose, and by heating with dilute acids into dextrose. Cf. Sugar, Inulin, and Lichenin.

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.

Starch, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Starched; p. pr. & vb. n. Starching.] To stiffen with starch.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.