v. [f. STARK a. + -EN5.
The forms sturken, storken (Yorkshire dial.: see quot. 1862 in sense 1) represent a different though cognate word, a. ON. storkna, referred to under STARK a.]
1. intr. = STARK v. 1.
14[?]. Pol., Rel., & L. Poems (1903), 253/6. [Signs of Death.] His nese shal sharpen, & his skyn shal starken.
1563–83. Foxe, A. & M., 1895/1. He … wyth the ryghte hande being somewhat starckned knocked vpon his brest softly.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 38. Which … was their nutrimental juice coagulated there, like the bloud starkn’d in the veins of dead Animals.
1862. C. C. Robinson, Dial. Leeds, 420. Starken, Sturken, Storken, to stiffen. Boiled treacle or rendered fat ‘starkens’ as it cools.
1876. T. S. Egan, trans. Heine’s Atta Troll, etc. 146.
| They now lie mute and like unto the dead, | |
| Starkened and cold within their misty bed. |
2. trans. To make stark or inflexible.
1842. Sir H. Taylor, Edwin the Fair, IV. iv. Wks. 1864, II. 103. If thy lust of kingly power Outbid thine other lusts, and starken thee In grasping of that shadow of a sceptre That still is left thee.
