noun

• (uncountable) A widely diffused vegetable substance, found especially in seeds, bulbs and tubers, as extracted (e.g. from potatoes, corn, rice, etc.) in the form of 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.
  "Meronym: saccharide"
• (nutrition, countable) Carbohydrates, as with grain and potato based foods.
• (uncountable) A stiff, formal manner; formality.
  "this Professor is to give the society their stiffening, and infuse into their manners that beautiful political starch, which may qualify them for Levées, Conferences, Visits"
• (uncountable) Fortitude.
  "The thought of the gun in his back put some starch in him. He needed the handrail, and he limped step by step, but he ascended at his full height."