Perish the thought!

An emphatic idiom of repudiation, “Perish the thought!” expresses immediate rejection of an idea as unacceptable, improper, or absurd—often with a theatrical flourish. Attributing it to Colley Cibber (a prominent actor-manager and playwright) suggests a stage origin, since the phrase has the ring of heightened dramatic dialogue and was later common in English comic and sentimental drama. In use, it functions less as literal malediction than as a social signal: the speaker performs moral distance from the suggestion, sometimes sincerely, sometimes ironically. Without a verified Cibber passage, however, its significance here is best understood as a stock exclamation that fits Cibber’s theatrical milieu rather than a uniquely Cibberian maxim.