Surfeit
Pronunciation
- RP IPA: /ˈsÉœË.fɪt/
- US IPA: /ˈsÉË.fɪt/
- Rhymes: -ÉœË(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)- (countable) An excessive amount of something.A surfeit of wheat is driving down the price.
- (uncountable) Overindulgence in either food or drink; overeating.
- ShakespeareNow comes the sick hour that his surfeit made.
- (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
- Disgust caused by excess; satiety.
- BurkeMatter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit.
Synonyms
- (excessive amount of something) excess, glut, overabundance, superfluity, surplus
- (overindulgence in food or drink) gluttony, overeating, overindulgence
Verb
- (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;
- (transitive) To feed someone to excess.She surfeited her children on sweets.
- (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.
- (intransitive, reflexive) To sicken from overindulgence.