SURFEIT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Surfeit

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/sˈərfət/ Listen

noun

Surfeit n.

Excess in eating and drinking. "Let not Sir Surfeit sit at thy board." "Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made."

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."

Disgust caused by excess; satiety. "Matter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit."

verb

Surfeit v. t. (past & past part. surfeited; pres. part. surfeiting)

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.

To fill to satiety and disgust; to cloy; as, he surfeits us with compliments.

Surfeit v. i.

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."

To indulge to satiety in any gratification.

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Etymology of 'Surfeit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Surfeit" Quotes from Famous Books

... to be before this morning," said Sally. "And I suppose I shall be again in time. For the moment I've had what you might call rather a surfeit of dogs. But aren't you straying from the point? I asked you ...

— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... ordered the dinner, sir, and got more credit for inventing it than they ever gave to Ude or Soyer. The Marquess was in ecstasies, the Earl devoured half a bushel of sprats, and if the Viscount is not laid up with a surfeit of bullock's heart, my name's not Howard Walker. Billy, as I call him, was in the chair, and gave my health; and what do ...

— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... injustice; while he that does not submit to him shall be subject to the same punishment, as if he had been guilty of impiety towards God himself. When we offer sacrifices to him, we do it not in order to surfeit ourselves, or to be drunken; for such excesses are against the will of God, and would be an occasion of injuries and of luxury; but by keeping ourselves sober, orderly, and ready for our other occupations, and being ...

— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... to an house and spend nothing; and then there may be some danger of the horse growing resty if he be not used often, so you must give him leave to go to Abingdon once every week, to look out of the tavern window and see the maids sell turnips; and in one month or two come home with a surfeit of poisoned wine, and save any farther trouble by dying, and then you will be troubled to send for your horse ...

— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of them are too ignorant, and many are too afraid to see it. It is the same old story of every perishing ruling class in the world's history. Fat with power and possession, drunken with success, and made soft by surfeit and by cessation of struggle, they are like the drones clustered about the honey vats when the worker-bees spring upon them to ...

— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

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