clear-starch, v.
To stiffen and dress linen with clear or colourless starch.
| 1709 Steele Tatler No. 37 ¶8 If the said Servant can Clear-Starch, Lisp and Tread softly. 1712 ― Spect. No. 264 ¶2 A Taylor's Widow, who washes and can clear-starch his Bands. |
Hence ˈclear-starched ppl. a. (often fig.); ˈclear-starching vbl. n.; ˈclear-starcher, one who clear-starches, esp. as a vocation.
| 1709 Steele Tatler No. 118 ¶8 Your Petitioner was bred a Clear-starcher and Sempstress. 1727 Fielding Love in Sev. Masq. iii. vii, We teach our daughters..that good old English art of clear-starching, instead of that heathenish gambol called dancing. 1774 West. Mag. II. 9 Their stiff, clear-starch'd virtue won't get a cull. 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 213 A fine plain clear-starched caul. 1855 Mrs. Gaskell North & S. ix, I am getting to be a famous clear-starcher. 1865 Cornh. Mag. Oct. 411 To find some one to teach clear-starching at your school. |