All 5 Uses of
perish
in
Bleak House
- It is a street of perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and every door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very crutches on which the ruins are propped decaying.†
Chpt 7-9
- The floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth.†
Chpt 10-12 *
- Is he to perish?†
Chpt 37-39
- Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish.†
Chpt 46-48
- As indifferent as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the earlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its other departed monsters.†
Chpt 46-48
Definition:
-
(perish) to die -- especially in an unnatural way
or:
to be destroyed or cease to existeditor's notes: You may encounter an informal expression, "Perish the thought." It means that the speaker hopes the thought will cease to exist and the thing it represents will never happen.