v. — Newfoundland, rare
to be extremely cold, freezing. Usually in the forms to be perished and perishing.
Type: 2. Preservation — OED-3, s.v. "perish" (1b), defines the verb "perish" as 'to be suffering extremely (from cold or hunger)'. In Newfoundland, the common forms perished and perishing took on the specific meaning of 'cold' and can be considered synonymous with "freezing". These forms are often followed by the prepositional phrase "with cold" or "with the cold". This also applies when using perish to describe someone who has died as a result of exposure to cold temperatures. Thus, phrases like "he was perished with cold", i.e. "he was extremely cold", should not be confused with "he has perished with cold", i.e. "he has died of hypothermia".
Perish is a preservation from British English, where it means 'to become chilled, benumbed, frostbitten' (EDD, s.v. "perish" (1)). The influx of settlers to Newfoundland in the 18th and 19th centuries brought with them many southwestern English terms that managed to remain in the local lexicon for decades to follow (Clarke 2010b: 7). However, the lack of written evidence for this sense of perish in recent decades indicates that the term is losing currency, like other traditional Newfoundland terms.
See COD-2, s.v. "perish", v. (4), which labels the meaning "suffer from cold or exposure: we were perished standing outside" as "Brit".