Word.ws English Dictionary

perp

UK/pɜːp/US/pɝp/

perp noun: a perpetrator. Also the clipping of perpendicular.

Noun (1)

perp (plural perps)

  1. (slang) A perpetrator.
    • "We have the perp in custody," the policeman said.
    • Got himself fired for pulling a sword on an acknowledged perp. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp’s shirt, gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck, and pinned him to a warped and bubbled expanse of vinyl siding on the wall of the house that the perp was trying to break...1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 6

Noun (2)

perp (plural perps)

  1. A perpetual bond.
  2. Perpetual futures.
    • Autopsies carried out since then [Oct 2025 crypto crash] suggest that much of the damage can be traced to investors having piled into financial products known as perpetual futures. So-called perps allow traders to make highly leveraged bets, up to 100-to-1 on some crypto exchanges, to boost their...2025 December 6, George Steer, Jill R Shah, Nikou Asgari, “Crypto’s rocky year”, in FT Weekend (Big Read section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6

Also used as

perp is also the clipping of perpendicular.

Examples of perp in a sentence

  • Got himself fired for pulling a sword on an acknowledged perp.1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, New York: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 6:
  • Autopsies carried out since then [Oct 2025 crypto crash] suggest that much of the damage can be traced to investors having piled into financial products known as perpetual futures.2025 December 6, George Steer, Jill R Shah, Nikou Asgari, “Crypto’s rocky year”, in FT Weekend (Big Read section), London: The Financial...

Forms of perp

pluralperps

Plural of perp: perps

Origin of perp

Clipping of perpetrator.

Clipping of perpetual futures or perpetual bond.

Words formed from perp

Phrases with perp

Words that rhyme with perp

Questions about perp

What does perp mean?
Perp means a perpetrator.
How do you use perp in a sentence?
Got himself fired for pulling a sword on an acknowledged perp.
What part of speech is perp?
Perp is a noun.
How do you pronounce perp?
Perp is pronounced /pɜːp/ (UK).
What is the plural of perp?
The plural of perp is perps.

Words near perp in the dictionary

  1. peroxysomes
  2. peroxytrichloride
  3. peroxytrifluoroacetic acid
  4. peroxyvanadate
  5. peroxyvanadates
  6. perp
  7. perp walk
  8. perp walks
  9. perp-walk
  10. perp-walked
  11. perp-walking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: perp (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-perp.ogg.

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