perish

Etymology

From Middle English perishen, from Old French periss-, stem of certain parts of perir, from Latin perīre (“to pass away, perish”), present active infinitive of pereō, from per (“through”) + eō (“to go”); see iter.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛɹɪʃ/

• Audio (US)

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• Homophone: parish (some accents)
• Hyphenation: per‧ish

Verb

perish (third-person singular simple present perishes, present participle perishing, simple past and past participle perished)

1. (intransitive) To decay and disappear; to waste away to nothing.
   • 1881, Tarafa, translated by W. A. Clouston, The Poem of Tarafa

     I consider time as a treasure decreasing every night; and that which every day diminishes soon perishes for ever.

2. (intransitive) To decay in such a way that it can't be used for its original purpose
   • 2015, Christopher Cumo, Foods that Changed History

     The difficulty is that fresh foods perish due to the multiplication in them of harmful bacteria.

3. (intransitive) To die; to cease to live.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     ...the ship struck upon a sand, and ... the sea broke over her in such a manner that we expected we should all have perished immediately; and we were immediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from the very foam and spray of the sea.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To cause to perish.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

Anagrams

• hipers, pisher, reship, seriph