perish
Americanverb (used without object)
-
to die or be destroyed through violence, privation, etc..
to perish in an earthquake.
- Synonyms:
- expire
-
to pass away or disappear.
an age of elegance that has forever perished.
- Antonyms:
- appear
-
to suffer destruction or ruin.
His valuable paintings perished in the fire.
-
to suffer spiritual death.
Save us, lest we perish.
idioms
verb
-
to be destroyed or die, esp in an untimely way
-
(tr sometimes followed by with or from) to cause to suffer
we were perished with cold
-
to rot
leather perishes if exposed to bad weather
-
may it never be or happen thus
noun
Related Words
See die 1.
Other Word Forms
- perishless adjective
- perishment noun
- unperished adjective
Etymology
Origin of perish
1200–50; Middle English perissen < Old French periss-, long stem of perir < Latin perīre to perish, literally, go through, spend fully, equivalent to per- per- + īre to go
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They looked absolutely freezing, which was not a surprise as it was a perishing January night in Lancashire.
From BBC
Late Sunday, police also said that all of the 40 people who perished in the tragedy had been identified.
From Barron's
All told, 89 merchant vessels and more than 2,700 Allied seaman perished in the Arctic.
Swiss police warned it could take days or even weeks to identify everyone who perished, leaving an agonising wait for family and friends.
From Barron's
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. put it simply in 1961, another era when it seemed America would split into pieces: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
