Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Perish

Perish , intransitive verb

[Old English perissen, perisshen, French périr, p. pr. périssant, Latin perire to go or run through, come to nothing, perish; per through + ire to go. Compare Issue, and see -ish.]

To be destroyed; to pass away; to become nothing; to be lost; to die; hence, to wither; to waste away.
I perish with hunger! — Luke xv. 17
Grow up and perish, as the summer fly. — Milton
The thoughts of a soul that perish in thinking. — Locke

Perish , transitive verb

To cause perish. [Obsolete] — Bacon
Collocations (1)
perish the thought , I hope it will never happen; -- a phrase used after mention of a possible undesirable event, sometimes facetiously.