starched
English edit
Verb edit
starched
- simple past and past participle of starch
Adjective edit
starched (comparative more starched, superlative most starched)
- Of a garment: having had starch applied.
- 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, pages 703-704:
- I recall the height of comfort attained by the green-cushioned "first" with starched white antimacassars and a pretentious grey floor mat on which it seemed a sacrilege to stand, as it was embellished with the North Western conception of Britannia, complete with trident.
- Stiff, formal, rigid; prim and proper.
- 1712, Jonathan Swift, “An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity”, in The Works of Jonathan Swift[1], volume 1, Dublin: George Faulkner, published 1751, pages 102-103:
- Does the Gospel any where prescribe a starched squeezed Countenance, a stiff formal Gait, a Singularity of Manners and Habit, or any affected Modes of Speech, different from the reasonable Part of Mankind?
- 1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, chapter 5, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792, →OCLC:
- A cultivated understanding, and an affectionate heart, will never want starched rules of decorum—something more substantial than seemliness will be the result; and, without understanding the behaviour here recommended, would be rank affectation.
- 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 245:
- I was not a little startled at recognising in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned before Justice Inglewood, and Mr MacVittie the merchant, at whose starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.
- 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life[2], Penguin, published 1968, page 107:
- ‘ […] CD is a fair-enough scholar but starched like my grand-daddy’s collar.’
Quotations edit
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:starched.