different between starched vs ceremonious

English

Verb

starched

1. simple past tense and past participle of starch

Adjective

starched (comparative more starched, superlative most starched)

1. Of a garment: having had starch applied.
2. Stiff, formal, rigid; prim and proper.
   • 1712, Jonathan Swift, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, Dublin: George Faulkner, 1751, Volume 1, pp. 102-103,^[1]

     Does the Gospel any where prescribe a starched squeezed Countenance, a stiff formal Gait, a Singularity of Manners and Habit, or any affected Modes of Speech, different from the reasonable Part of Mankind?

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London: J. Johnson, Part 1, Chapter 5, Section 3, pp. 217-218,^[2]

     A cultivated understanding, and an affectionate heart, will never want starched rules of decorum—something more substantial than seemliness will be the result; and, without understanding the behaviour here recommended, would be rank affectation.

   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Volume 2, Chapter 8,^[3]

     I was not a little startled at recognising in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned before Justice Inglewood, and Mr. MacVittie the merchant, from whose starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.

   • 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life, Penguin, 1968, p. 107,^[4]

     ‘ […] CD is a fair-enough scholar but starched like my grand-daddy’s collar.’

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:starched.

Anagrams

• cartshed, destarch, herd cats

English

Etymology

From Middle French cérémonieux, from Late Latin caerimoniosus, from Latin caerimonia.

Adjective

ceremonious (comparative more ceremonious, superlative most ceremonious)

1. Fond of ceremony, ritual or strict etiquette; punctilious
   • 1608, Thomas Dekker, Lanthorne and Candle-Light in The Guls Hornbook and The Belman of London, J.M. Dent, 1936, p. 163, [1]

     […] some Writers do almost nothing contrary to the custome, and some by vertue of that Priviledge, dare doe any thing. I am neither of that first order, nor of this last. The one is too fondly-ceremonious, the other too impudently audacious.

   • 1958, C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1986, Chapter III, p. 23,

     Ancient and oriental cultures are in many ways more conventional, more ceremonious, and more courteous than our own.

2. Characterized by ceremony or rigid formality

   • O, the sacrifice! / How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly / It was i' the offering!

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 17, [2]

     Captain Vere advanced to meet him, […] and interrupting the other's wonted ceremonious salutation, said, "Nay, tell me how it is with yonder man," […]

Derived terms

• ceremoniously
• ceremoniousness
• unceremonious