Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Perch

Perch (pẽrch), n. [Written also pearch.] [OE. perche, F. perche, L. perca, fr. Gr. πέρκη; cf. περκνός dark-colored, Skr. pṛçni spotted, speckled, and E. freckle.] (Zoöl.) 1. Any fresh-water fish of the genus Perca and of several other allied genera of the family Percidæ, as the common American or yellow perch (Perca flavescens, or Americana), and the European perch (P. fluviatilis).

2. Any one of numerous species of spiny-finned fishes belonging to the Percidæ, Serranidæ, and related families, and resembling, more or less, the true perches.

Black perch. (a) The black bass. (b) The flasher. (c) The sea bass. — Blue perch, the cunner. — Gray perch, the fresh-water drum. — Red perch, the rosefish. — Red-bellied perch, the long-eared pondfish. — Perch pest, a small crustacean, parasitic in the mouth of the perch. — Silver perch, the yellowtail. — Stone, or Striped, perch, the pope. — White perch, the Roccus, or Morone, Americanus, a small silvery serranoid market fish of the Atlantic coast.

Perch (pẽrch), n. [F. perche, L. pertica.] 1. A pole; a long staff; a rod; esp., a pole or other support for fowls to roost on or to rest on; a roost; figuratively, any elevated resting place or seat.

As chauntecleer among his wives all Sat on his perche, that was in his hall. Chaucer.

Not making his high place the lawless perch Of winged ambitions. Tennyson.

2. (a) A measure of length containing five and a half yards; a rod, or pole. (b) In land or square measure: A square rod; the 160th part of an acre. (c) In solid measure: A mass 16½ feet long, 1 foot in height, and 1½ feet in breadth, or 24¾ cubic feet (in local use, from 22 to 25 cubic feet); — used in measuring stonework.

3. A pole connecting the fore gear and hind gear of a spring carriage; a reach.

Perch, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Perched; p. pr. & vb. n. Perching.] [F. percher. See Perch a pole.] To alight or settle, as a bird; to sit or roost.

Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Shak.

Perch, v. t. 1. To place or to set on, or as on, a perch.

2. To occupy as a perch. Milton.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.