Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Stiffness of manner; preciseness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality or state of being starched or starchy{5}; stiffness of manner; preciseness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The quality of being
starched ;stiff formality .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Habington, though in a different key, has something of the starchness rather than strength which characterises _Castara_.
A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889
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A certain degree of starchness is indispensable for a railway director, if he means to go forward in his high calling and prosper; he must abandon all juvenile eccentricities, and aim at the appearance of a decided enemy to free trade in the article of Wild Oats.
Stories by English Authors: Scotland (Selected by Scribners) Various 1878
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He has none of that contemptuous pride, none of that solemn starchness, which we disliked so much in all the other nobles.
The Works of Frederich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller 1782
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He has none of that contemptuous pride, none of that solemn starchness, which we disliked so much in all the other nobles.
The Ghost-Seer; or the Apparitionist; and Sport of Destiny Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller 1782
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We there stated our opinion of the author's talents in a peculiar style of novel-writing -- a sort of mixture of satire and fashion, without the starchness of the one, or the silly affectation of the other -- abounding in well-drawn pictures of real life, free from caricature, and teeming with home-truths, in themselves of such plainness and ready application, as to make precept and example follow on with near approaches to probability and truth.
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 360, March 14, 1829 Various
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