Find the word definition

Crossword clues for surfeit

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
surfeit
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A surfeit of rock dust blocked their vision and irritated their throats.
▪ Both have been suffering from a surfeit of squash, according to the man who manages them, Norman Norrington.
▪ It's not excess of turkey and plum pudding that has been indigestible; it's the surfeit of news.
▪ The world has a surfeit of mediocre drummers.
▪ Then, too, repeated visits to cultural monuments doubtless palled in time, natural curiosity withered by sheer surfeit.
▪ This was about surfeit of the senses.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Surfeit

Surfeit \Sur"feit\, v. 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.
    --Shak.

  2. To indulge to satiety in any gratification.

Surfeit

Surfeit \Sur"feit\, v. 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.

Surfeit

Surfeit \Sur"feit\, n. [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.
    --Shak.

  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.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
surfeit

late 14c., intransitive, "indulge or feed to excess," from surfeit (n.). Related: Surfeited; surfeiting. Transitive sense from 1590s.

surfeit

early 14c., "excess quantity;" late 14c., "overindulgence," from Old French sorfet "excess; arrogance" (Modern French surfait), noun use of past participle of surfaire "overdo," from sur- "over" (see sur- (1)) + faire "do," from Latin facere "to make" (see factitious).

Wiktionary
surfeit

n. 1 (context countable English) An excessive amount of something. 2 (context uncountable English) overindulgence in either food or drink; overeating. 3 (context countable English) A sickness or condition caused by overindulgence. 4 Disgust caused by excess; satiety. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To fill to excess. 2 (context transitive English) To feed someone to excess. 3 (context intransitive reflexive English) To overeat or feed to excess. 4 (context intransitive reflexive English) To sicken from overindulgence.

WordNet
surfeit
  1. n. the state of being more than full [syn: excess, overabundance]

  2. the quality of being so overabundant that prices fall [syn: glut, oversupply]

  3. eating until excessively full [syn: repletion]

  4. v. supply or feed to surfeit [syn: cloy]

  5. indulge (one's appetite) to satiety

Wikipedia
Surfeit

Surfeit is a human gene cluster that consists of a group of very tightly linked genes on chromosome 9 that do not share sequence similarity. Genes in this cluster are numbered 1 through 6: SURF1, SURF2, SURF3, SURF4, SURF5, and SURF6.

Usage examples of "surfeit".

De Batz, surfeited with foreign money, used it firstly to ensure his own immunity, scattering it to right and left to still the ambition of the Public Prosecutor or to satisfy the greed of innumerable spies.

While what I am to describe to you comes to fruition, I shall play the part of a serene old man, far removed from influence, weary indeed of a surfeit of it, an old countryman who seems mainly interested in the system devised on these umber hills by my neighbor Columella and by the freedman Sthenus for the abundant cultivation of grapes, and in the capital they will say that Seneca is at one of his villas writing tragedies, pruning vines, taking cold baths in all weathers at the age of sixty-two, and sending homiletic epistles to his friend Lucilius Junior, who, poor fellow, is already all too amply instructed by his wordy friend.

She could have pointed out that during weeks of the London season and a surfeit of balls and routs, Miss Cressida Mandeville had not once been introduced to the Duke of St.

The nation, as if surfeited with the marvels of space and medicine and science and sophisticated social analysis, seemed hungry for anti-intellectual preachment, and Leopold Strabismus was eager to provide it.

Sick of a surfeit of pleasures, the whining monarch, counselled by his soothsayers, ransacked his kingdom for the shirt of a happy subject.

Ocarshi and a surfeit of power had destroyed whatever Anehiiaa had known.

His refusal to partake of any of the dishes that made up the second course did draw comment from his mama, but as she ascribed his loss of appetite to a surfeit of sugarplums, he could only be sorry that she had noticed his abstention.

The lush green of winter, with its surfeit of magenta and salmon bougainvillea, had erupted anew in a splashy show of crocuses, hyacinths, and flowering plum trees.

With a surfeit of respectable ladies and their daughters, left without a breadwinner by the war against Bonaparte, there was no shortage of governesses or companions.

She had for once a surfeit of highhoting in the pictures, the porcelains, the thrones and canopies, the tapestries, the historical associations with the margraves and their marriages, with the Great Frederick and the Great Napoleon.

Surfeit with War, he reigneth peaceably, And soothes his solitude from vat and still.

These days, a worse problem is the surfeit of remakes inflicted upon us.

As for the men, on whose arms they leaned, their careless and lounging airs were intended to give the idea of a surfeit of pleasure, and to make one think that the disordered appearance of their companions was a sure triumph they had enjoyed.

The rain and hail that had troubled them across the plains of Tare had mercifully abated, but the clouds had thickened, as if they bore within them a surfeit of ice and hatred, waiting for the moment when it could be unleashed upon the column of Axemen.

The last withdrawals were almost painful and the Rowan felt totally drained, her mind barren and echoing after such a surfeit.