1
as in dies
to stop living
12 people perished in the plane crash
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in disintegrates
chiefly British
to go through decomposition
after being left out in the summer heat, the milk perished and had to be thrown out
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of perishes
Every soldier Harry would have saved on a transport during the war perishes too.
—
Margaret Heidenry, Vanity Fair, 24 Dec. 2025
Factory ships deplete fisheries in a matter of years and an inordinate amount of sea life also perishes in their nets.
—Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 12 Aug. 2025
Margaret Heidenry, Vanity Fair, 24 Dec. 2025
Factory ships deplete fisheries in a matter of years and an inordinate amount of sea life also perishes in their nets.
—Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 12 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for perishes
Verb
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Hesbach said that bumble bees are often frequently bought online to pollinate fruit crops, but that their population dies each winter.—
Stephen Underwood,
Hartford Courant,
20 Feb. 2026
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The state attorney general's office has taken over the investigation, which is standard practice when a person dies during a police encounter.—
Nick Caloway,
CBS News,
20 Feb. 2026
Verb
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If the American state disintegrates, future postmortems are unlikely to focus much on measles, or on rotavirus vaccination rates.—
Vann R. Newkirk II,
The Atlantic,
9 Feb. 2026
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The debris – space rocks known as meteoroids – collides with Earth's atmosphere at high speed and disintegrates, creating fiery and colorful streaks in the sky, according to NASA.—
Eric Lagatta,
USA Today,
2 Jan. 2026
Verb
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March falls within the start of strawberry season, so what better way to honor the juicy fruit than to wear them on your nails.—
Christina Perrier,
InStyle,
21 Feb. 2026
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As the share of its imports coming from China falls and Southeast Asian countries pick up the slack, shipments are spending more days in transit time, bringing pressure from retailers to make that up at the docks.—
Liz Hoffman,
semafor.com,
20 Feb. 2026
Verb
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The research team developed a route-planning system for Astrobee, the ISS’s robotic assistant, that leverages sequential convex programming—a method that decomposes complex trajectory planning into smaller, tractable steps while guaranteeing safety and feasibility.—
Jijo Malayil,
Interesting Engineering,
12 Dec. 2025
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Shilajit is a mineral-rich resin that forms over centuries as plant material slowly decomposes under heat and pressure within the rocks of the Himalayan Mountains.—
Lindsay Curtis,
Verywell Health,
27 Nov. 2025
Verb
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The Shakespearean classic focuses on Macbeth, a Scottish general who makes his prophecy of becoming king a reality but then succumbs to madness.—
Alyson Rodriguez,
Dallas Morning News,
29 Jan. 2026
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Her sexuality is a source of conflict for her family, and the pressure leads to the painful breakup with her girlfriend, Rosie (Jess Gabor), who succumbs to family expectations.—
Robert Lang,
Deadline,
17 Dec. 2025
Verb
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Grief gets layered on top of grief and secrets stack sky high as suburban normalcy decays into something at once alarmingly unstable and comfortingly funny.—
Alison Foreman,
IndieWire,
19 Dec. 2025
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This famously happens when a quantum object is measured, but in this case, the mystery crops up when the top quark decays into lighter particles.—
Shalma Wegsman,
Quanta Magazine,
25 Nov. 2025
Verb
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The big differences between the labs probably reflect the fact that, as Italians like to say, the fish rots from the head.—
Caroline Mimbs Nyce,
New Yorker,
10 Feb. 2026
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Bacterial plant diseases include speck (a winter-surviving infection that attacks tomatoes), canker (which damages fruit trees including those producing apples and peaches), and blight (which rots melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, beans, and more).—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
10 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Perishes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/perishes. Accessed 24 Feb. 2026.
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