Meaning

noun a complex carbohydrate found chiefly in seeds, fruits, tubers, roots and stem pith of plants, notably in corn, potatoes, wheat, and rice; an important foodstuff and used otherwise especially in adhesi

noun a commercial preparation of starch that is used to stiffen textile fabrics in laundering

verb stiffen with starch

originFrom Middle English starche, sterche, from Old English *stierċe (“stiffness, rigidity, strength”), from Proto-West Germanic *starkī (“stiffness, rigidity, fortitude, strength”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sterg- (“stiff, rigid”). Cognate with dialectal Dutch sterk (“strong”), Middle Low German sterke (“strength”), German Stärke (“strength", also "starch”), Swedish stärkelse (“starch”),…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0