Definition of "perish" []

• 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). (verb-intransitive)
• To pass from existence; disappear gradually: "Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish” ( A.J. Balfour). (verb-intransitive)
• Chiefly British To spoil or deteriorate. (verb-intransitive)
• To bring to destruction; destroy: "Many foul blights/Perish'd his hard won gains” ( Thomas Hood). (verb-transitive)
• Perish the thought Used to express the wish that one not even think about something. (idiom)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• ""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_. ""