perch1
/pəːtʃ
/noun
1An object on which a bird alights or roosts, typically a branch or horizontal bar: the budgerigar shuffled along its perch...
- Dead branches also make perfect perches for resting birds and are good places to hang feeders.
- The frame-houses, on the other hand, seem to have alighted like passing birds on unlikely perches.
- Most of the perches were exposed horizontal stems or branches about 1 cm in diameter.
Synonyms
pole, rod, branch, roost, rest, resting place
1.1A place where someone or something rests or sits, especially one that is high or precarious: Marian looked down from her perch in a beech tree above the road...
- It's on one of the most dramatic stretches of coastline in the country, and rugged perches with ocean views and road frontage will only become more of a rarity with the tightening of planning regulations in areas of scenic beauty.
- Meanwhile, she rested on a perch, mildly disgusted by all the commotion.
- Rescue crews plucked thousands of people from trees and rooftops yesterday, but thousands more were left behind, forced to survive yet another night on precarious perches above still rising flood water.
verb [no object, with adverbial of place]
1(Of a bird) alight or rest on something: a herring gull perched on the rails...
- She looked up to see a large, colorful bird perched on the rail, watching her curiously.
- Scarlet macaws, blue and gold macaws, and hosts of smaller birds perch together in their hundreds to excavate the best clay layer along a riverbank.
- Over the weekend, the birds will perch on trees all around the neighborhood and wait for the cacophony to die down.
Synonyms
roost, sit, rest;
alight, settle, land, come to rest
1.1(Of a person) sit on something high or narrow: Eve perched on the side of the armchair...
- As it backs up near one of the houses, a chatter of excitement erupts from the people perched precariously on top of its cargo.
- We spotted an old man precariously perched on top of a pile of rubble, searching for something.
- Her design provides a steeply raked underlit playing area upon which the actors perch precariously.
1.2 (be perched) (Of a building) be situated above or on the edge of something: the fortress is perched on a crag in the mountains...
- Whisper glided across the dark bay, having spied in the distance a tall building perched on the edge of a cliff.
- She leads me along a row of bamboo restaurants perched high above the mangroves.
- As every self-respecting Yorkshireman knows, this is the highest inn in England, perched at 1,732 above sea level.
Synonyms
be located, be situated, be positioned, be sited, stand
1.3 [with object] (perch someone/thing on) Set or balance someone or something on: Peter perched a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose...
- Their little bar-stool table was about the size of a postage stamp and they were struggling to share an entrée, perching the plates on their laps, couch-potato style, and totally at odds with the eloquence of the rest of the restaurant.
- She sat on the other end of the bench seat and perched her feet on the edge of the seat in front of her.
- When my bedroom was empty except for the waterbed, the lamp, and the stereo, I perched a note on the coffee table in front of the TV.
Synonyms
put, place, set, rest, balance
Phrases
knock someone off their perch
Derivatives
percher
- Never having been much of a percher, I'm leaning.
- Big, flat feet are usually found in nearly flightless ground birds or in raptors, but anhimids are active flyers, frequent perchers, and never hunt anything larger than a bug.
Origin
Late Middle English: the noun from perch3; the verb from Old French percher.
The perch in a bird's cage is from Middle English perch meaning ‘pole, stick’ (from Old French perche, ultimately from Latin) which was also formerly used as a measure of length. The fish gets its name via Latin from Greek perke which may come from a word meaning ‘speckled’.
Rhymes
perch2
/pəːtʃ/noun (plural same or perches)
1An edible freshwater fish with a high spiny dorsal fin, dark vertical bars on the body, and orange lower fins.
- Genus Perca, family Percidae (the perch family): three species, in particular P. fluviatilis of Europe (also called bass2), and the almost identical yellow perch (P. flavescens) of North America. The perch family also includes the pikeperches, ruffe, and darters.
- Fish species most commonly consumed included bass, yellow perch, and walleye.
- The zander has the rough feel and spiked dorsal fins of the perch, protecting small fish from predation, particularly from pike and herons.
1.1Used in names of other freshwater and marine fishes resembling or related to the perch, e.g. climbing perch, pikeperch, sea perch, surfperch.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French perche, via Latin from Greek perkē.
perch3
/pəːtʃ/noun historical, chiefly British
1A measure of length, especially for land, equal to a quarter of a chain or 5 1/2 yards (approximately 5.029 m). Also called pole1, rod.This strange measure undoubtedly is related to other archaisms such as the furlong, the perch and the fathom....
- He begins his analysis by simplifying and generalizing the problem, dispensing with the surveyor's vocabulary of perches and chains and bearings.
- High street contains about seventy houses, is 90 feet in width, and 180 perches in length.
2 (also square perch) A measure of area, especially for land, equal to 160th of an acre or 30 1/4 square yards (approximately 25.29 sq. metres). Also called pole1, rod, square pole, square rod.It was part of an area of 15 acres, three roods and four perches originally granted to him....
- It is described in Griffith's Valuation of 1857 as containing one acre two roods and five perches and owned by him.
- In 1914, 1 acre was taken for a pumice quarry, and subsequently 3 roods, or 27.8 perches, were returned to the descendants of those owners.
Origin
Middle English (in the general sense 'pole, stick'): from Old French perche, from Latin pertica 'measuring rod, pole'.