starch, n. 1. formality, ceremony, stiffness, rigidity, inflexibility; primness, propriety, prudery, SI. uptightness; etiquette, manners, decorum, convenance; strictness, exactness, exactitude, punctilio, punctiliousness, precision, preciseness, fastidiousness, meticulousness.
2. Informal, vigor, energy, vitality, birr, stamina, get up and go; grit, pluck; intensity, force, boldness, courage, SI. guts, nerve.
stare, v. 1. gaze, gape, gawk, goggle, Inf. rubberneck, Inf. rubber; eye, Inf. eyeball, ogle, stare at; keep an eye on, watch.
2. be conspicuous, catch the eye, stand out, be prominent, project, stick out; glare, be vivid, be ostentatious; loom, beetle, jut.
3. (all of hair, feathers, etc.) bristle, stand on end, stick up.
-v. 4. empty gaze, blank look, fixed look; gaping, gawking, goggling, ogling,
stark, adj. 1. sheer, utter, downright, absolute, unqualified, unmitigated, arrant, thorough, pure, perfect; complete, entire, out-and-out, outright, total, veritable, unconditional; rank, gross, glaring, flagrant, conspicuous; clear, evident, patent, unmistakable, obvious, plain; mere.
2. harsh, grim, dreary, drear, gray; desolate, barren, bare, vacant, abandoned, empty; arid, desert; wasted, laid waste, ravaged, destroyed; exhausted, depleted, worn, unfertile.
3. simple, severe, austere, spartan, puritanical, ascetic; unadorned, undecorated, unfurnished, unfurbished.
4. stiff, rigid, hard, inflexible, nonflexible, unbend-able, unbending, inelastic, unplastic, nonpliant, unpliable, unmalleable; tight, tense, taut, Inf. stiff as a poker, Inf. stiff as a ramod; cold, dead, Inf. stiff as a board, petrified, ossified. -adv. 5. utterly, absolutely, downright, out-and-out, outright, all-out, straight-out; through and through, backward and forward, SI. all the way, to the nth degree, grossly, quite; completely, entirely, wholly, totally, thoroughly, fully, altogether; unqualifiedly, unconditionally, unreservedly, unequivocally, unambiguously, clearly and simply, plain, plainly; clearly, obviously, evidently.
starlike, adj. 1. stellate, stelliform, stellular, star-shaped, astral, starry; radiate.