(The verb this was based on doesn't really exist anymore. Similar to "strittig" but "strittig" is only about facts, while this can be about controversy in a broader sense)
Pretty simple, but it evolved into quite a few different directions.
Here’s an (incomplete) list of English family members:
stark – (“strong, rigid”, shifted toward serious)
starch – (“makes mush thick, stiff”)
stern – (“rigid”)
to start – (“jumping up quickly, stiff muscles”)
to startle – (Same as “start” but shifted toward the cause)
to stare – (“stiff gaze”, same as German “starren”)
starve – (“stiff corpse”, same as German “sterben” – to die)
torpedo – (“make numb”, from a Latin name for an electric ray fish that numbs you. Military name first used for sea mines, because they “sting” your ship)
stereo – (Greek word for “solid”, they used it among other things for “solid 3D perception, I suppose)
The root is also the origin of the Slavic word star-, which means old.
