536 S T A 
STAPLETON, a hamlet of England, North Riding of 
Yorkshire; 11 miles north-east of Richmond, and 2 south¬ 
west of Darlington. 
STAPLETON, a hamlet of England, West Riding of 
Yorkshire; 4 miles south-east of Pontefract. 
STAR, s. [It may be curious to notice the concurrence 
of various languages in regard to star. Persian, starra. See 
Sir T. Herbert's Trav. Teut. sterre; Sax. pteoppa; 
Bretonne, ster; Gr.asnjp; Germ. stern; Su.Goth. stierna; 
M. Goth, stairno. The word has been supposed by Wachter 
and others to have been formed from the verb, signifying 
to rule, to govern, to direct ; as sterren, Teut., steuren, 
Germ., stiuran, Goth.] One of the luminous bodies that 
appear in the nocturnal sky.—When an astronomer uses the 
word star in its strict sense, it is applied only to the fixt 
stars; but in a large sense, it includes the planets. Watts. 
Then let the pebbles on the hungry beech 
Fillip the stars; — 
Murdering impossibility, to make 
What cannot be, slight work. Skakspeare. 
The pole-star.—Well, if you be not turn’d Turk, there is 
no more sailing by the star. Skakspeare. —Configuration 
of the planets supposed to influence fortune. 
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes 
A pair of star crost lovers take their life. Skakspeare. 
A mark of reference; an asterisk.—Remarks worthy of 
riper observation, note with a marginal star. Watts. 
STAR, a village of Scotland, in Fifeshire, containing 
about 200 inhabitants. 
STAR OF BETHLEHEM, s. [ornithogalum, Lat.] A 
flower. Miller. 
STAR ISLAND, one of the isles of Shoals, belonging to 
Maine, in the United States. 
STARA-CRIM. See Levkopol 
STARAJA RUSSA, a town in the west of European 
Russia, in the government of Novgorod, on the river Po- 
lista, not far from the lake Ilmen. It contains 5300 inha¬ 
bitants, and has a considerable trade in hemp and flax ; but 
the most important establishment is a salt work belonging to 
the government, which produces yearly about 60,000 tons 
of salt; 34 miles south of Novgorod, and 137 south-by-east 
of Petersburg. 
STA'RAPPLE, s. A globular or olive-shaped soft fleshy 
fruit, inclosing a stone of the same shape. This plant grows 
in the warmest parts of America, where the fruit is eaten by 
way of dessert. It grows to the height of thirty or forty feet. 
Miller 
STARASOL, a small town of Austriau Poland ; 10 miles 
west-by-south of Sambor, with 3500 inhabitants, and some 
salt works. 
STA'RBOARD, s. [pteopbopb, Sax.] The right hand 
side of the ship, as larboard is the left. Harris. —On ship¬ 
board the mariners will not leave their starboard and lar¬ 
board, because some one accounts it gibrish. Bramhall. 
STARBOTTOM, a township of England, West Riding 
of Yorkshire; 13 miles north-east of Settle. 
STARCH, s. [from stark. Germ., rigidus, durus, solidus; 
which Stilerand Wachter deduce from starren, rigere, in- 
durare; hence the sense of stiff to the word: “a stark, 
durus, rigidus, derivatur stcerken, facere ut rigeat, a quo 
rursus fit stcerke et stcerke-m ail, gluten farinaceum, quo 
lintea solidantur.” Wachter.'] A kind of viscous matter 
made of flower or potatoes, with which linen is stiffened, 
and was formerly coloured. 
Has he 
Dislik’d your yellow starch, or said your doublet 
Was not exactly Frenchified. Fletcher. 
A stiff, formal manner.—This professor is to infuse into 
their manners that beautiful political starch, which may 
qualify them for levees, conferences, visits. Addison. 
Starch is extracted from wheaten flour, by washing it 
in water. All farinaceous seeds, and the roots of most vege- 
S T A 
tables, afford this substance in a greater or less degree; but 
it is most easily obtained from the flour of wheat, by moist¬ 
ening any quantity thereof with a little water, and kneading 
it with the hand into a tough paste: this being washed with 
water, by letting fall upon it a very slender stream, the water 
will be rendered turbid as it runs off, in consequence of the 
fecula or starch which it extracts from the flour, and which 
will subside when the water is allowed to stand at rest. Jhe 
residuum of the flower, which remains after the water has 
extracted all the fecula, and runs off colourless, will be found 
to be gluten. 
Sir II. Davy conceives, that this matter or coagulated 
mucilage, which forms the greatest part of all grains and 
seeds which are used in the way of food, is generally com¬ 
bined with gluten, oil or albuminous matter. In corn, 
with gluten; in pulse, such as peas and beans, with albu¬ 
minous matter; and in rape seed, lint seed, hemp-seed, and 
the kernels of most nuts, with oils. He found that one 
hundred parts of good full-grained wheat sown in the au¬ 
tumn, afforded seventy parts of starch and nineteen parts 
of gluten : that one hundred parts of wheat sown in the 
spring yielded seventy of starch and twenty-four of gluten: 
that the same number of parts of Barbary wheat gave 
seventy-four of starch and twenty-eight of gluten : and that 
an equal number of parts of Sicilian wheat afforded seventy- 
five of starch and twenty-one of gluten. He has also tried 
different specimens of North American wheat, all of which 
have contained rather more gluten than those of British 
growth. In general, it is said, the wheat of warm climates 
abounds more in glufen and insoluble parts; and is of 
greater specific gravity, harder, and more difficult to grind, 
than that of others: and that the wheat of the south of Eu¬ 
rope, in consequence of containing a larger proportion of 
gluteu, is peculiarly fitted for making macaroni, and pre¬ 
parations of flour in which a glutiuous quality is considered 
as an excellence 
In some trials made on barley, he obtained, from one hun¬ 
dred parts of a full, fair, Norfolk sort, seventy-nine of 
starch, six of gluten, and eight of husk; the remaining 
seven parts consisting of sweet or saccharine matter. The 
sugar in barley is suggested as probably the chief cause why 
it is more proper for malting than any of the other sorts of 
grain. It is stated that Einhoff, in his minute trials on 
barley-meal, found in three thousand eight hundred and forty 
parts, three hundred and sixty of volatile matter, forty-four 
of albumen, two hundred of saccharine matter, one hundred 
and seventy of mucilage, nine of phosphate of lime, with 
some albumen, one hundred and thirty-five of gluten, two 
hundred and sixty of husk, with some gluten and starch, 
two thousand five hundred and eighty of starch not quite 
free from gluten, and seventy-eight parts of loss in the 
whole. And that rye afforded to the same experimenter, 
in the same number of parts, two thousand five hundred 
and twenty of meal, nine hundred and thirty of husk, and 
three hundred and ninety of moisture; the same quantity of 
meal, on being analysed, gave two thousand three hundred 
and forty-five of starch, one hundred and twenty-six of al¬ 
bumen, four hundred and twenty-six of mucilage, one hun¬ 
dred and twenty-six of saccharine matter, and three hundred 
and sixty-four of gluten not dried. The remainder husk 
and loss. 
STARCH, adj. [ptape, Sax.] Stiff; precise; rigid.— 
If this will not do, ’tis but misrepresenting sobriety as a 
starch and formal, and virtue as a laborious and slavish 
thing. Killingbeck. 
To STARCH, v. a. To stiffen with starch. 
Her goodly countenance I’ve seen 
Set off with kerchief starch'd and pinners clean. Gap. 
STA'RCHAMBER, s. [camera ste.llata, Lat.] A kind 
of criminal court of equity. Now abolished. —I’ll make a 
starcharnbcr matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Fal- 
staffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esq. Skakspeare. 
STA'RCHED, part. adj. Stiffened with starch.—Who ? 
this 
