• Surfeit

    Pronunciation

    • RP IPA: /ˈsɜː.fɪt/
    • US IPA: /ˈsɝː.fɪt/
    • Rhymes: -ɜː(r)fɪt

    Origin

    From Old French surfaire ("to augment, exaggerate, exceed"), from sur- + faire ("to do").

    Full definition of surfeit

    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.
      • ShakespeareNow comes the sick hour that his surfeit made.
    3. (countable) A sickness or condition caused by overindulgence.King Henry I is said to have died of a surfeit of lampreys.
      • Bunyanto prevent surfeit and other diseases that are incident to those that heat their blood by travels
    4. Disgust caused by excess; satiety.
      • BurkeMatter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit.

    Synonyms

    Verb

    1. (transitive) To fill to excess.
      • 1610, , by William Shakespeare, act 3 scene 3You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,That hath to instrument this lower worldAnd what is in't,—the never-surfeited seaHath 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, 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

    Anagrams

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