perish

Synonyms: perished, perishes, perishing

Preanalysis assumption: Offhand, “perish” is synonymous to dying and would therefore suggest the experience of sexual requitement. But just as in common language “perish” has a meaning of dying before one’s time, through other than natural causes, to lose one’s life through the accidents and vicissitudes of life, so does it acquire in the secret language a qualified meaning of “dying”, that in perhaps most cases means the very opposite: not having requitement, but being frustrated of it. Thus it identifies with the “death without the dying”. Often the perishing occurs to acts or endeavors within the intercourse, which attempt the gaining of the requitement. There is a quality of drama, even of tragedy, attached to this term “perish” which is not generally shared by the term “to die”. It evokes special feelings of sadness at its use and it is therefore a powerful poetic word. It becomes so by poignant events that are almost invariably connected with it. It is life coming to no thing in its self-assertion, it is frustration of life in its most vital concerns.