perch

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Any of several spiny-finned freshwater fishes of the genus Perca, especially either of two edible species, the yellow perch of North America, and P. fluviatilis of Europe.
• noun Any of various similar fishes of the family Percidae, such as the walleye, or of other families, such as the white perch or the ocean perch.
• noun A rod or branch serving as a roost for a bird.
• noun An elevated place for resting or sitting.
• noun A position that is secure, advantageous, or prominent.
• noun A pole, stick, or rod.
• noun A linear measure equal to 5.50 yards or 16.5 feet (5.03 meters); a rod.
• noun One square rod of land.
• noun A unit of cubic measure used in stonework, usually 16.5 feet by 1.0 foot by 1.5 feet, or 24.75 cubic feet (0.70 cubic meter).
• noun A frame on which cloth is laid for examination of quality.
• intransitive verb To alight or rest on a perch; roost.
• intransitive verb To stand, sit, or rest on an elevated place or position.
• intransitive verb To place on or as if on a perch.
• intransitive verb To lay (cloth) on a perch in order to examine it.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A rod or pole; especially, a rod or pole serving as a roost for birds; anything on which birds alight and rest.
• noun Hence An elevated seat or position.
• noun A rod or pole used as a definite measure of length; a measure of length equal to 5½ yards. Perches of 7 and 8 yards have also been in local use. See pole.
• noun A square measure equal to 30¼ square yards: 160 perches make an acre.
• noun A unit of cubic measure used by stone-masons. It is usually 16½ feet by 1½ feet by 1 foot; but it varies greatly.
• noun A pole or staff set up as a beacon on a shallow place or a rock, or used to mark a channel.
• noun In vehicles: A pole connecting the fore and hind gears of a spring-carriage; the reach or bar. See cut under barouche.
• noun An elevated seat for the driver
• noun [⟨ perch, verb] The act of perching or alighting upon a place; hence, grasp; hold.
• To alight or settle on a perch or elevated support, as a bird; use a perch; roost.
• To alight or sit in some elevated position, as if on a perch.
• To place, set, or fix on a perch or other elevated support.
• To operate upon (“roughers,” or woolen cloth as taken from the looms) as follows:
• noun Applied, with various epithets, to many fishes in Australia, none of which belong to the family Percidæ.
• noun In Australia, Coprodon longimanus.
• noun In leather manufacturing, a frame on which a skin is stretched flat so that it may be worked smooth and soft.
• noun In textile-manuf., a frame, usually with two overhead rolls, over which cloth is drawn to be examined for imperfections.
• noun 11. In car-building, a draft-timber.
• In leather manufacturing, to soften or draw out by means of a perch. See perch, n., 9.
• noun A very common fresh-water fish of Europe, Perca fluviatilis, or one of many other species of the same family.
• noun A fish of one of various other genera or families
• noun One of the dark species of Lepomis or of Pomotis.
• noun The black sea-bass, Centropristis atrarius.
• noun One of the dark viviparous perches, as Ditrema jacksoni.
• noun The fresh-water drum, or sheepshead, Aplodinotus grunniens.
• noun The tripletail, Lobotes surinamensis.
• noun The rose-fish, Sebastes viviparus.
• noun One of several embiotocoid or viviparous perches
• noun A serranoid fish, Macquaria australasica.
• noun The black or wide-mouthed sunfish, Chænobryttus gulosus.
• noun The fresh-water drum, sheepshead, or black perch, Aplodinotus grunniens.
• noun One of several different embiotocids or viviparous perches, as Hyperprosopon argenteus, Damalichthys vacca, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To place or to set on, or as on, a perch.
• transitive verb To occupy as a perch.