PERISH Synonyms: 98 Similar and Opposite Words

perish

verb

ˈper-ish

Definition of perish

as in to die

to stop living 12 people perished in the plane crash

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in to disintegrate

chiefly British to go through decomposition after being left out in the summer heat, the milk perished and had to be thrown out

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of perish But Jameson is hardly the first family pet to senselessly perish at the hands of law enforcement officers who resort to deadly force far too quickly. — Vanessa Shakib, Oc Register, 23 July 2026 At least 5,000 people perished, most of them in La Guaira state, a strip of cities and slums crammed between the coastal cordillera and the Caribbean Sea, half an hour from Caracas. — Rafael Osío Cabrices, Time, 20 July 2026 People working on ships, as well as foreign workers and others in gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also perished in the conflict. — Josh Boak, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 2026 The era in which the dinosaurs perished would be unrecognizable to a modern person. — Nancy Walecki, The Atlantic, 17 July 2026 See All Example Sentences for perish

Recent Examples of Synonyms for perish

Verb

He was later stabilized but ultimately died from his injuries Sunday.

— Jason Green, Mercury News, 12 Aug. 2026
Zhu steered China’s economic policy for more than a decade since the early 1990s, first as a vice premier and then the premier under late leader Jiang Zemin, who died in late 2022.

— CNN Staff, CNN Money, 12 Aug. 2026

Definition of die

Verb

Some types of masonry can start to disintegrate days after a fire if no one has weatherproofed it after the fire.

— Giorgia Giardina, The Conversation, 13 Aug. 2026
Recent observations of some little red dots at lower redshifts have shown the cloud of gas around the black hole begin to disintegrate, exposing the black hole and the X-rays produced by the accretion of gas onto it.

— Keith Cooper, Space.com, 12 Aug. 2026

Definition of disintegrate

Verb

Once the veteran players and most of the top seeds vanished from the Canadian Open, succumbing to injury and upset, the stakes of the tournament in Montreal took on a new edge.

— Ava Wallace, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2026
In the film, Bourdain doesn’t succumb as deeply to drugs and other bad habits that the chef owned up to in his writing.

— Laurie Ochoa, Los Angeles Times, 11 Aug. 2026

Definition of succumb

Verb

City leaders have accused Lineage, whose warehouse in Boyle Heights was destroyed by fire, of blowing past the city’s 45-day deadline for removing millions of pounds of rotting food from its property.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 15 Aug. 2026
Too thick a mulch layer can cause these normally smaller plants to remain wet and rot.

— Tom MacCubbin, The Orlando Sentinel, 15 Aug. 2026

Definition of rot

Verb

Researchers can look for this signal by measuring the average vertical direction of the positrons produced when the muons decay.

— Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 15 Aug. 2026
The new owners took over the keys to a tired and decaying club in the spring and have since overseen a summer renovation that has stretched from assembling a new first-team squad to restoring hot water to Hillsborough.

— Philip Buckingham, New York Times, 14 Aug. 2026