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Webster 1913 Edition


Surfeit

Sur′feit

,
Noun.
[OE.
surfet
, OF.
surfait
,
sorfait
, excess, arrogance, crime, fr.
surfaire
,
sorfaire
, to augment, exaggerate, F.
surfaire
to overcharge;
sur
over +
faire
to make, do, L.
facere
. See
Sur-
, and
Fact
.]
1.
Excess in eating and drinking.
Let not Sir
Surfeit
sit at thy board.
Piers Plowman.
Now comes the sick hour that his
surfeit
made.
Shakespeare
2.
Fullness and oppression of the system, occasioned often by excessive eating and drinking.
To prevent
surfeit
and other diseases that are incident to those that heat their blood by travels.
Bunyan.
3.
Disgust caused by excess; satiety.
Sir P. Sidney.
Matter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to
surfeit
.
Burke.

Sur′feit

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To load the stomach with food, so that sickness or uneasiness ensues; to eat to excess.
They are as sick that
surfeit
with too much as they that starve with nothing.
Shakespeare
2.
To indulge to satiety in any gratification.

Sur′feit

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Surfeited
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Surfeiting
.]
1.
To feed so as to oppress the stomach and derange the function of the system; to overfeed, and produce satiety, sickness, or uneasiness; – often reflexive;
as, to
surfeit
one’s self with sweets
.
2.
To fill to satiety and disgust; to cloy;
as, he
surfeits
us with compliments
.
V. Knox.

Webster 1828 Edition


Surfeit

SURFEIT

,
Verb.
T.
sur'fit. [L. facio.]
1.
To feed with meat or drink, so as to oppress the stomach and derange the functions of the system; to overfeed and produce sickness or uneasiness.
2.
To cloy; to fill to satiety and disgust. He surfeits us with his eulogies.

Definition 2024


surfeit

surfeit

English

Noun

surfeit (countable and uncountable, plural surfeits)

  1. (countable) An excessive amount of something.
    A surfeit of wheat is driving down the price.
  2. (uncountable) Overindulgence in either food or drink; overeating.
    • Shakespeare
      Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made.
    • 1611, Bible (KJV), Luke 21:34:
      And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
  3. (countable) A sickness or condition caused by overindulgence.
    King Henry I is said to have died of a surfeit of lampreys.
    • Bunyan
      to prevent surfeit and other diseases that are incident to those that heat their blood by travels
  4. Disgust caused by excess; satiety.
    • Burke
      Matter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit.
    • Sir Philip Sidney
      Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think all herbalists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, which certainly is as absurd a surfeit to the ears as is possible.

Quotations

  • For usage examples of this term, see Citations:surfeit.

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

surfeit (third-person singular simple present surfeits, present participle surfeiting, simple past and past participle surfeited)

  1. (transitive) To fill to excess.
    • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 3 scene 3
      You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
      That hath to instrument this lower world
      And what is in't,—the never-surfeited sea
      Hath caused to belch up you;
  2. (transitive) To feed someone to excess.
    She surfeited her children on sweets.
  3. (intransitive, reflexive) To overeat or feed to excess.
    • 1906, O. Henry, The Furnished Room
      To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers.
  4. (intransitive, reflexive) To sicken from overindulgence.

Synonyms

Translations

Related terms

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