| Starch 1. (a.) Stiff; precise; rigid. 2. (n.) 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. 3. (n.) Fig.: A stiff, formal manner; formality. 4. (v. t.) To stiffen with starch. Thesaurus Entries aggressiveness, albumen, bang, batter, bonnyclabber, butter, carbohydrate, clabber, cornstarch, cream, curd, dash, dough, drive, egg white, enterprise, fire, gaum, gel, gelatin, get-up-and-go, getup, ginger, glair, glop, glue, gluten, go, goo, gook, goop, gruel, gumbo, gunk, hydroxy aldehyde, hydroxy ketone, initiative, jam, jell, jelly, kick, loblolly, molasses, monosaccharide, mucilage, mucus, pap, paste, pep, pepper, piss and vinegar, pizzazz, polysaccharide, polysaccharose, poop, porridge, pudding, pulp, punch, puree, push, putty, rob, saccharide, semifluid, semiliquid, size, snap, soup, spunk, sticky mess, sugar, syrup, thrust, treacle, trisaccharide, verve, vim, vitality, zing, zip |