starkyadj.

1657 J. Trapp Comm. Ezra (Job xxx. 18) 258 It is become so stiff and starky, that it wrings me and hurts me, as an uneasie collar girds and gripes a mans neck.

1697 R. Pierce Bath Mem. ii. v. 312 His Hands would be as hard, dry and starky, as if he had wrought for his Living, at Cleaving of Wood.

a1722 E. Lisle Observ. Husbandry (1757) 50 If the ground be dry and starky,..so much the better.

a1722 E. Lisle Observ. Husbandry (1757) 426 Wool..when three years old..grows starkey and dry, and will not lie smooth in the spinning.

1757 Universal Mag. Jan. 4/1 I..observed in the fibres of the roots of the smutty wheat a general brittleness, and the earth more starky and dry about them.

1841 Southern Planter July 119/2 Many planters fire their tobacco until the oil is removed and the leaf made stiff and starky.

1894 J. Salisbury Gloss. Words S.E. Worcs. 38 We shaunt a no rain, this piece o' thunk oodn't be so starky un 'ard else.

1965 F. Hynes in Dict. Newfoundland Eng. (1982) 529/2 I uses cutch for the rounds and leader of a cod trap, but now for the bottom I uses tar because it makes the linnet right starky an' hard. When it dries 'tis almost like a wire netting.

1992 A. Thorpe Ulverton iii. 55 God approves, in his Majesty, the lowliest act of procreation, whether in the starky, stiff soil of husbandry or the moistness of woman.