perishing

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English

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Adjective

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perishing (comparative more perishing, superlative most perishing)

  1. Extremely cold.
  2. Extreme; used of environmental or bodily conditions.
    • 1946, Frank W. C. Rieck, Life as I See It, page 308:
      If many more white men knew of this method of obtaining and extracting water, there would be, perhaps, many saved from the horrors of perishing thirst.
    • 2011, Mary Groves, An Outback Life, page 102:
      A boulder ground into Joe's thigh and he yelled for what seemed an eternity in the perishing heat but, apart from a few bird calls, the horse's laboured breath was the only sound he heard.

Verb

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perishing

  1. present participle and gerund of perish

Noun

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perishing (plural perishings)

  1. The act of something that perishes; decay or destruction.
    • 1971, William Barrett, Henry David Aiken, Pragmatism and America's philosophical coming of age, page 323:
      Since the world of becoming, of origins and perishings, is deficient in true Being, it cannot be known in the best sense.