perisher

perisher noun: an annoying child, a brat.

Noun

perisher (plural perishers)

(UK, informal) An annoying child, a brat.
- Get off my lawn, you little perisher!
(rare) One who perishes.
- The Perishers
  Various peoples have perished in the past - for instance, Neanderthal Man and, later, the Tasmanians. Others are in the process of perishing - the aboriginees of Australia, the Bushmen, the Ituri Pygmies and the Red Indians.1969, Arthur Theodore Culwick, Who Shall Inherit the Earth?, page 69
- They died to decree that government of and by and for the PEOPLE (identity undefined) should never perish. The poor perishers, perishing still.1976, Akros, page 56
(Australia, UK, obsolete) An extreme act; a case of going all in.
- 'So I've come down to Coltonslough, being, as I understand, the dullest hole upon the earth's crust, and I mean to go in a perisher.' A 'perisher' was his expression. 'And I mean to read like old boots; so you may let your servant light me a fire, ...'1865, Only a Clod, in Three Volumes, page 184
- Then he most times went in an awful perisher — took a month to it, and was never sober day or night the whole time. When he'd spent all his money he'd crawl out of the township and get away into the country more dead than alive, ...1888, Rolf Boldrewood, Robbery Under Arms: A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia, page 314

the Perisher

There was a rather satisfying little crack as each of the perishers perished.2010, Alan Weeks, Bloody Picnic: Tommy's Humour, 1914-18, The History Press, →ISBN:
He went in a perisher last night, laying aginst Sir Tatton Sykes for the Derby with a half-a-dozen thousand pound notes in his hands, all of which he will lose.1890 November 7, Lie. Vict. Gaz.:

plural	perishers

From perish + -er.

A pun on periscope and perish, in allusion to the supposedly low pass rate.

What does perisher mean?: Perisher means an annoying child, a brat.
How do you use perisher in a sentence?: There was a rather satisfying little crack as each of the perishers perished.
What part of speech is perisher?: Perisher can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of perisher?: The plural of perisher is perishers.

Adapted from Wiktionary: perisher (page history and authors); Perisher (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “perisher.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/perisher. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.