v. To stiffen and dress linen with clear or colorless starch.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 37, ¶ 8. If the said Servant can Clear-Starch, Lisp and Tread softly. Ibid. (1712), Spect., No. 264, ¶ 2. A Taylor’s Widow, who washes and can clear-starch his Bands.
Hence Clear-starched ppl. a. (often fig.); Clear-starching vbl. sb.; Clear-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. Westm. 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.
