phrase

• Used, often ironically, to show that one finds a suggestion or idea completely ridiculous or unwelcome.

  More example sentences

  • ‘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.’