starch, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

starch n.

1. arrogance; pride.

1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 10: One of the antidotes of the Daffy Club is starch; the members [are] not to be slighted by the self-importance of a soi-disant Swell.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 85: starch Pride.
1866		Broad Arrow Jack 8: That stiff-necked young beggar [...] all starch and impudence.

2. semen.

1848		Satirist & Blade (Boston, MA) 19 Feb. n.p.: Schooner Big Thunder, loaded with lard oil and gimblets, was run foul of [...] by a sloop loaded with starch, by which she suffered some in her lower rigging.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) I 161: How are your cods off for starch to-night?
c.1940		‘Amos ’n Andy’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 71: She had better go easy with that thing or she’s liable to get a face full of starch.
1947		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 20: There was a young man from Siam / Who said, ‘I go in with a wham, / But I soon lose my starch / Like the mad month of March, / And the lion comes out like a lamb’.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

3. courage, well being.

1952

W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 165: When he passed on, I lost my starch. All my starch, Arky.

4. (US) face powder.

1906

J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:iii 158: starch, n. Face powder. ‘She put a lot of starch on her face and then forgot to wipe it off.’.

In derivatives

starchy (adj.)

covered with semen.

1967

P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 140: My shorts were stiff and starchy from the great strain on my vein, so I soaped and rinsed them and tossed them into the washbowl.

In phrases

put on starch (v.)

(Aus.) to act in an arrogant manner.

1900

Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Mar. 31/4: ‘I’ve always been awfully gone on you,’ he said. ‘I never could bear girls who put on starch, and pretend they’re English, and all that.’.

take the starch out of (v.)

1. to have sexual intercourse with, usu. of a woman [the wilted post-orgasmic penis].

1882		Cremorne III 79: The most exquisite fuck [...] takes the starch from a man’s prick.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 55: But yours! I never, never met one [i.e. penis] like it! It will give me a lot of trouble, I can see, to take all the starch out of it!
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 23: Avoir contentement = to copulate; ‘to take the starch out of’.
1902		D. St John Memoirs of Madge Buford 73: ‘I suppose they [i.e. men] want us to take some of the starch out of them’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 71: Possess her once take the starch out of her.

2. to break the spirit of someone or something, to make weary or less arrogant.

1851		‘How Mike Hooter Came Very Near “Wolloping” Arch Coony’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 150: You b’lieved I was skeered of you, an’ the fust chance you got, you’d take the starch out’n me as sure as er gun.
1861		R.H. Newell Orpheus C. Kerr I 46: Ef I don’t take the statch out of that ere Nine’s feller [...] you may just take my boots.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 270: The Governor says a night in there’ll take the starch out of yer.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 2 Dec. 9: [pic. caption] How a Couple of Sporting Windbags Had the Starch Taken Out of Them and Were Taught to Sing Small.
1888		Cornhill Mag. 375: The freeborn Westerner thinks the blamed Yankee puts on a yard too much style – the Boys don’t approve of style – and suavely proposes to take the starch out of him [F&H].
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Mar. 24/3: Once Wylie hooked Corbett with the right, and down went the man that took the starch out of plugger Bilmartin.
1908		‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 8: What do you suppose I care about Tom Pearce? I can whisper a few words in his ear that will take some of the starch out of him!
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 229: It ain’t a knockout blow [...] but it’s awful wearin’ in a long fight. It takes the starch out of you.
1927		(con. 1918) J.W. Thomason Red Pants 101: Tike the bloody starch out uv any uv ’em if y’ hold they heads under water a bit.
1939		K. Pinkerton Wilderness Wife 21: The trail led steeply over a granite rise which took the starch out of Robert’s knees as he climbed it with two packsacks [DA].
1956		‘Ed Lacy’ Men from the Boys (1967) 13: Nothing like a wallop in the gut to take the starch out of a rough stud.
1964		J. Thompson Pop. 1280 in Four Novels (1983) 368: It was the first time I’d spoken up to her for a long time, and it kind of took the starch out of her.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 199: Suddenly the night was pierced by a sound so fearful that it erected the hair on their scalps and took the starch totally out of them.
1989		Hackworth & Sherman About Face (1991) 50: Our artillery (arty) fire took the starch out of the North Korean advance.
1995		R. Campbell Wizard of La-La Land (1999) 173: It was enough to take the starch out of you.