Meaning of perish the thought in English:
perish the thought
phrase
informalUsed, often ironically, to show that one finds a suggestion or idea completely ridiculous or unwelcome.
- ‘he wasn't out to get drunk—perish the thought!’
- ‘Or even, perish the thought, an expenditure that need not have its results measured in dollars and cents, but as an altruistic good.’
- ‘But perish the thought that you should actually cut your pay.’
- ‘We wouldn't take a brown envelope - perish the thought!’
- ‘I wasn't unwell and there's no scandal, perish the thought.’
- ‘Was I - after only a few days impersonating a political reporter - becoming, perish the thought, a tad cynical?’
- ‘Is there an automatic mechanism to correct the situation or, perish the thought, is the situation more pathological?’
- ‘So perhaps - perish the thought - they're not actually coming after all?’
- ‘It's just possible - perish the thought - that not everything in the world can be analysed sociologically.’
- ‘Here, at last, we have one who seems, perish the thought, to be able to make up his own mind.’
- ‘We could, perish the thought, have something of equal proportions.’
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