Other forms: perched, perches, perching
To perch is to land on something narrow and sit there — a robin on a fence, a pigeon on a wire, a row of starlings along a gutter. The perch itself is that branch, bar or ledge the bird sits on.
People perch too, and the word tells you how: on the edge, briefly, not settled in. She perched on the arm of the sofa; he perched on a stool by the door. Buildings perch as well, when they stand somewhere high and narrow — the chapel perches above the harbour. As a noun it stretches to any high spot with a view: from his perch on the ladder he could see the whole street. Then there is a second perch with no connection at all, a striped freshwater fish with a spiny fin, caught in European lakes and rivers. Same spelling; an angler means the fish.
1verbperch(Of a bird) to land on a branch, wire or ledge and rest there.~2%
“A crow perched on the telephone line and watched us.”
2verbmoveTo sit on the edge of something, or somewhere high and narrow.~2%
“He perched on a stool at the end of the bar.”
3verbbuilding(Of a building or place) to stand on a high or narrow spot.~9%
“The white chapel perches above the harbour.”
4nounbarA bar, branch or ledge that a bird rests on.~2%
“The parrot hopped back onto its perch.”
5nounpositionA high position that gives a good view.~19%
“From her perch on the ladder she could see the whole garden.”
6nounfishA freshwater fish with dark stripes and a spiny fin.~66%
“He caught three perch before lunch and put them all back.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 12 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
This story belongs to the fish. Perch came through Middle English and Old French from Latin perca, and before that Greek πέρκη, which sits right beside Greek περκνός, dark-spotted. The dark bars down its side named it. The perch a bird lands on reached English by another road entirely.
Middle English
perche
English, today
perch
Built from
From Middle English perche. From Middle English perche, from Old French perche, from Latin perca, from Ancient Greek πέρκη (“perch”), cognate with περκνός (“dark-spotted”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European perḱ-, whence also Old English forn (“trout”), German Forelle (“trout”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA