Feculency

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of having a starchy or farinaceous nature, often relating to foods that contain or produce starch
2. Describes the characteristic of containing starch or yielding a starchy substance when processed
3. Refers to the property of being rich in starch, indicating a food or material's capacity to provide or contain this carbohydrate

Etymology: Latin "faex" meant the dregs or lees that settle at the bottom of wine, oil, or other liquids. From it came "faeculentus," meaning full of such sediment, and then "faeculentia," the noun for muddiness or foulness. English took that noun as "feculency," which is a doublet of "feculence," meaning the two forms descend from the same source by separate routes. The Latin root also gave English "faeces," the same word for waste matter, which shows how a term for sediment in a liquid could come to name the foul residue of the body. Within English, "feculency" describes that murkiness or sediment, not starch content. A starchy food would be called "farinaceous" or "amylaceous" in its place.