All 5 Uses of
perish
in
Rappaccini's Daughter
- True, there were ugly recollections connected with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency save the fragrance of her breath.†
perished = died, was destroyed, or ceased to exist
- I am no flower to perish in her grasp.†
perish = die, be destroyed, or cease to exist
- Hast thou grown so poisonous that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath?†
*perishes = dies or is destroyed
- They that come after us will perish as by a pestilence!†
perish = die, be destroyed, or cease to exist
- To Beatrice,—so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by Rappaccini's skill,—as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was death; and thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity and of thwarted nature, and of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted wisdom, perished there, at the feet of her father and Giovanni.†
perished = died, was destroyed, or ceased to exist
Definition:
to die -- especially in an unnatural way
or:
to be destroyed or cease to exist
or:
to be destroyed or cease to exist
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.