Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To die or be destroyed, especially in a violent or untimely manner: "Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those who have no imagination?” ( George Bernard Shaw).
- v. To pass from existence; disappear gradually: "Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish” ( A.J. Balfour).
- v. Chiefly British To spoil or deteriorate.
- v. To bring to destruction; destroy: "Many foul blights/Perish'd his hard won gains” ( Thomas Hood).
- idiom. perish the thought Used to express the wish that one not even think about something.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To pass away; come to naught; waste away; decay and disappear.
- To cease to live; die.
- Synonyms Expire, Decease, etc. See die.
- To bring to naught; injure; destroy; kill.
- An obsolete form of pierce.
- n. The act of perishing: in the following slang phrase.
Wiktionary
- v. To pass away; to come to naught; to waste away; to decay and disappear.
- v. To die; to cease to live.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To be destroyed; to pass away; to become nothing; to be lost; to die; hence, to wither; to waste away.
- v. To cause perish.
WordNet 3.0
- v. pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life
Etymologies
- Middle English perishen, from Old French perir, periss-, to perish, from Latin perīre : per-, per- + īre, to go; see ei- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“In organic evolution the weak, the sick, the helpless, the unfit in anyway, perish, _and ought to perish_, because this is the most efficient way of strengthening the _blood or physical nature_ of the species, and thus of carrying forward evolution.”
“And Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer: -- and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to law, and _if I perish, I perish_. ”
“Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer: -- and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to law, and _if I perish, I perish_. ”
“Counsel shall not perish from the wise; the administration of public affairs shall always be lodged with the privy-counsellors and ministers of state, to whom it belongs; nor shall the word perish from the prophets -- they mean those of their own choosing, who prophesied to them smooth things, and flattered them with visions of peace.”
“Ever hear “that we here highly resolve ... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.””
“That Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, jailed 20,000 people without charges, forcibly shut down hundreds of newspapers that criticized him, and sent in federal troops to shut down state legislatures was irrelevant because he proclaimed “that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.””
“With the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln posited the idea of a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.; and whose closing demands that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
“Yes, I am a perishing blond, and a man, and I sit in the high place and bend the stupid ones to my will; and I am a lover, loving a royal woman of my own perishing breed, and together we occupy, and shall occupy, the high place of government and command until our kind perish from the earth.”
“Unless these two functions be carried on, life must perish from the planet.”
“Does President Obama really think “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall [possibly] perish from the earth”? —”
A Mission to Serve Lunch in the Capitol - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘perish’.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.