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Webster's English Dictionary

starch

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

n. [From starch stiff, cf. G. strke, 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. ()

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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. ()

v. t. To stiffen with starch. ()

n. [So called (as conjectured by Blackstone) from being held in a room at the Exchequer where the chests containing certain Jewish contracts and obligations called starrs (from the Heb. shetar, pron. shtar) were kept; or from the stars with which the ceiling is supposed to have been decorated.]1. (Eng. Hist.) An ancient high court exercising jurisdiction in certain cases, mainly criminal, which sat without the intervention of a jury. It consisted of the king's council, or of the privy council only with the addition of certain judges. It could proceed on mere rumor or examine witnesses; it could apply torture. It was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. (Encyc. Brit.)

2. Any court, committee, or other tribunal which exercises arbitrary and unaccountable power, or uses unfair or illegal methods, in investigation or judgment of persons. ()