Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To feed or supply to excess, satiety, or disgust.
  • intransitive verb To overindulge.
  • noun Overindulgence in food or drink.
  • noun The result of such overindulgence; satiety or disgust.
  • noun An excessive amount.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Excess; specifically (and now usually), excess in eating and drinking; a gluttonous meal by which the stomach is overloaded and the digestion deranged.
  • noun Fullness and oppression of the system, occasioned by excessive eating and drinking.
  • noun Disgust caused by excess; satiety; nausea.
  • noun Synonyms Repletion, plethora. See the verb.
  • To feed so as to oppress the stomach and derange the digestive functions; overfeed so as to produce sickness or uneasiness; overload the stomach of.
  • To fill to satiety and disgust; cloy; nauseate: as, to surfeit one with eulogies.
  • Synonyms Satiate, etc. (see satisfy); glut, gorge.
  • To be fed till the system is oppressed, and sickness or uneasiness ensues.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To load the stomach with food, so that sickness or uneasiness ensues; to eat to excess.
  • intransitive verb To indulge to satiety in any gratification.
  • transitive verb 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.
  • transitive verb To fill to satiety and disgust; to cloy.
  • noun Excess in eating and drinking.
  • noun Fullness and oppression of the system, occasioned often by excessive eating and drinking.
  • noun Disgust caused by excess; satiety.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun countable An excessive amount of something.
  • noun uncountable Overindulgence in either food or drink; overeating.
  • noun countable A sickness or condition caused by overindulgence.
  • verb transitive To fill to excess.
  • verb transitive To feed someone to excess.
  • verb intransitive, reflexive To overeat or feed to excess.
  • verb intransitive, reflexive To sicken from overindulgence.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the state of being more than full
  • noun the quality of being so overabundant that prices fall
  • noun eating until excessively full
  • verb indulge (one's appetite) to satiety
  • verb supply or feed to surfeit

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English surfeten, from surfait, excess, from Old French, from past participle of surfaire, to overdo : sur-, sur- + faire, to do (from Latin facere; see dhē- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

  • Apres Chremslech I trust you are not suffering from 'Pharoah's Revenge' otherwise known as a surfeit of Matzot.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • For Augustine says (Confess. ii, 6) that "lust affects to be called surfeit and abundance."

    Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas

  • The Monastic Impulse is based on world-weariness, with disappointed love, or sex surfeit, which is a phase of the same thing, as a basis.

    Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 10 Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers Elbert Hubbard 1885

  • A peculiar eruption, termed surfeit, which resembles mange, is sometimes the consequence of exposure to cold after a hot sultry day.

    The Dog William Youatt 1811

  • This disease is perhaps generally left after a slight inflammation of the stomach, called a surfeit, occasioned by drinking cold liquors, or eating cold vegetables, when heated with exercise.

    Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • But the surfeit is a far cry from earlier in 2010, when the network scrambled to fill five hours of primetime programming after canceling Leno's primetime show.

    Variety.com 2010

  • But the surfeit is a far cry from earlier in 2010, when the network scrambled to fill five hours of primetime programming after canceling Leno's primetime show.

    Variety.com 2010

  • But the surfeit is a far cry from earlier in 2010, when the network scrambled to fill five hours of primetime programming after canceling Leno's primetime show.

    Variety.com 2010

  • Tough call, but I probably like his "Many Moons" even a little better, both because it includes the word "surfeit" (the Princess falls ill from a surfeit of blueberry tarts) and because it covers astrophysics (all the King's royal advisers tell him it's impossible to have the moon on a chain because it's way too big, but the Jester figures out a way).

    Here Be Post-Modern Muppets 2006

  • They were explained in two ways: at the time of a fresh injection, the toxin was added to the amount already absorbed by the body, and thus had a heightened effect (Koch, Richet); or else certain subjects were occasionally and paradoxically hypersensitive, and this, as it were, by a kind of surfeit caused by repeated doses of the toxin (Behring).

    Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1913 - Presentation Speech 1967

Comments

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  • A group of skunks

    November 16, 2007

  • Hahahahahahah!!! Is this one for real?

    November 16, 2007

  • Well, more than one skunk would certainly be enough.

    Actually, a friend of mine in North Carolina once rescued several skunk kits when their mother became roadkill near his house. They were absolutely charming. They followed him around the house and the yard, they loved to play, they'd sit in your lap, and they never acted aggressively toward visitors.

    And no, they were never de-skunked.

    November 16, 2007

  • Awwww. Do you have pictures that you could post? What happened to them once they grew up?

    November 16, 2007

  • Yes, I've heard they're pretty good pets.

    November 16, 2007

  • Skunk has to be one of the best words ever. Like pronk.

    November 16, 2007

  • Did we nominate pronk for woty07?

    edit: Glad to see that somebody was already on it. :)

    November 16, 2007

  • Never took any pictures, jenn. This was way long ago. I wish I had, though.

    When the skunks were mature, he took them to a remote location and let them go. That's the last I heard of them.

    November 16, 2007