''surfeit'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904152658-00-⌔

surfeit - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

surfeit (comparative more surfeit, superlative most surfeit)

• (archaic) Sated; surfeited; filled. [from 16th c.]
  • ✤ If it proceed from the third occaſion, which is ſurfeit of Meats and Drinks, either natural or unnatural, then the ſigns are theſe; […]¹
  • ✤ “We are surfeit with sons of vassals of the king,” the merchant said.²

Noun

surfeit (countable and uncountable, plural surfeits)

• (countable) An excessive amount of something.
  • ✤ A surfeit of wheat is driving down the price.
  • ✤ With what could be a surfeit of candour, [Mike] Skinner has described DJing as more creative than playing his own songs, because, to paraphrase, of the “stress” and “creativity” of not knowing what he’ll be doing in three minutes’ time.³
• (uncountable) Overindulgence in either food or drink; overeating.
  • ✤ I feel too much thy blessing: make it [this excess]less,
    For fear I surfeit!
    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made.⁴
  • ✤ He insisted on stopping at a charmingly romantic cabman’s shelter somewhere, at five o’clock this morning, and we had a surfeit of hot cocoa and currant buns.⁵
• (countable) A sickness or condition caused by overindulgence.
  • ✤ King Henry I is said to have died of a surfeit of lampreys.
  • ✤ the Leaves they do eat to prevent surfeit and other diseases that are incident to those that heat their blood by travels⁶
• Disgust caused by excess; satiety.
  • ✤ Now for ſimilitudes in certain Printed diſcourſes, I thinke all Herberiſts, all ſtories of beaſts, foules, and fiſhes, are rifled vp, that they may come in multitudes to vvait vpon any of our conceits, which certainly is as abſurd a ſurfet to the eares as is poſsible.⁷
  • ✤ Matter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to surfeit.⁸
• (countable) A group of skunks.

Verb

surfeit (third-person singular simple present surfeits, present participle surfeiting, simple past and past participle surfeited)

• (transitive) To fill (something) to excess.
  • ✤ Synonym: stuff
  • ✤ You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
    That hath to instrument this lower world
    And what is in’t,—the never- surfeited sea
    Hath caused to belch up you;⁹
  • ✤ If this surfeited sponge of speculation, this crammed commercial cormorant, wanted more than that for his daughter, why could he not say so without asking disgusting questions such as these […]?¹⁰
• (transitive) To feed (someone) to excess (on, upon or with something).
  • ✤ Synonyms: glut, overfeed, stuff
  • ✤ She surfeited her children on sweets.
  • ✤ […] ev’n the wholsomest Meats may be surfeited on, and there is nothing more unhealthy, than to feed very well, and do but very little Exercise.¹¹
  • ✤ 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.¹²
  • ✤ If he said of a dish, in the local tongue: “I could do a bit of that!” or if he simply smacked his lips over it, she would surfeit him with that dish.¹³
• (transitive) To make (someone) sick as a result of overconsumption.
  • ✤ […] that proportion of meat surfetteth, and surchargeth the stomacks of some, which is not enough to satisfie the hunger of others,¹⁴
  • ✤ […] I imagine him poisoned by his wines, or surfeited by a favourite dish;¹⁵
• (transitive, figurative) To supply (someone) with something to excess; to disgust (someone) through overabundance.
  • ✤ Synonyms: cloy, glut
  • ✤ While some glad Rival in her Arms did lye,¹⁶
  • ✤ […] he shan’t shut me up in this dismal castle, and nauseate me with his surfeiting fondness:¹⁷
  • ✤ […] I suppose his majesty thought we had enough of it on the field, and did not wish to surfeit us with glory.¹⁸
  • ✤ After supper, surfeited with the subject, she yawned.¹⁹
  • ✤ The image- surfeited are likely to find sunsets corny; they now look, alas, too much like photographs.²⁰
• ✤ Glutted with Love and surfeited with Joy.
• (transitive, sometimes figurative) To satisfy (someone’s appetite) to excess.
  • ✤ Synonym: glut
  • ✤ […] his appetite for vulgar praise had not yet been surfeited;²¹
  • ✤ Every one has had the experience of being served with more food than can be eaten with relish and without waste. The effect is to surfeit the appetite and to limit the variety which a patron may have,²²
• (intransitive, reflexive) To overeat or feed to excess (on or upon something).
  • ✤ Synonyms: glut, indulge, overfeed, overindulge
  • ✤ And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.²³
  • ✤ Millions of people were starving, while the oligarchs and their supporters were surfeiting on the surplus.²⁴
  • ✤ Those who do not surfeit themselves do not weary quickly of any particular article of diet.²⁵
• (intransitive, reflexive, figurative) To indulge (in something) to excess.
  • ✤ After surfeiting itself with the Feast here provided for it, the Eye, by using a little Exercise in travelling about the Country, grows hungry again, and returns to the Entertainment with fresh Appetite.²⁶
  • ✤ […] a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.²⁷
  • ✤ […] the intemperate zeal with which middle-aged men are apt to surfeit themselves upon a seductive folly which they have tasted for the first time.²⁸
• (intransitive, reflexive, sometimes figurative) To become sick from overindulgence.
  • ✤ […] they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.²⁹
  • ✤ I must confesse at my first reading of them [the miracles of Hildegard of Bingen], my belief digested some, but surfeted on the rest:³⁰
  • ✤ He that ſerves many Miſtreſſes, ſurfeits on his diet, and grovvs dead to the vvhole ſex: ‘tis the folly in the vvorld next long ears and braying.³¹
  • ✤ But are children to be allowed to surfeit themselves? Shall they be suffered to take their fill of dainties and make themselves ill, as they certainly will do?³²

Etymology

From Middle English surfeite, surfet, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman surfet, surfeit and Old French sorfet, sorfait, past participle of surfaire (“to augment, exaggerate, exceed”), from sur- (“over”) + faire (“to do”). The adjective is derived from the noun.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈsɜː.fɪt/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈsɝː.fɪt/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)fɪt

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1686, Gervase Markham, Markham’s Faithful Farrier, London: […] J. Millet for J Deacon, page 7: ↩

2. 1959, D. V. S. Jackson, chapter I, in Walk with Peril, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 10: ↩

3. 2019 January 26, Kitty Empire[pseudonym], “The Streets review – the agony and ecstasy of a great everyman”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian ‎${}^{[1]}$, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 8 April 2019: ↩

4. c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]: ↩

5. 1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries: ↩

6. 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC: ↩

7. a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], The Defence of Poesie ‎${}^{[2]}$, London: […] [Thomas Creede] for VVilliam Ponsonby, published 1595, →OCLC, →OCLC: ↩

8. 1795–1797, Edmund Burke, “”, in [Letters on a Regicide Peace], London: [Rivington]: ↩

9. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]: ↩

10. 1873 May 1 – December 22 (date written), Anthony Trollope, chapter 23, in The Way We Live Now. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published June 1875, →OCLC: ↩

11. 1665, Robert Boyle, Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects ‎${}^{[3]}$, London: Henry Herringman, Reflection 10, page 186: ↩

12. 1906, O. Henry, “The Furnished Room”, in The Four Million ‎${}^{[4]}$, New York: A.L. Burt, page 240: ↩

13. 1909, Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives’ Tale ‎${}^{[5]}$, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 8, section 1, p. 318: ↩

14. 1640, Thomas Fuller, Joseph’s Partie-Colored Coat ‎${}^{[6]}$, London: John Williams: ↩

15. 1755 January 2, George Colman, The Connoisseur ‎${}^{[7]}$, volume 1, number 49, London: R. Baldwin, page 299: ↩

16. 1697, Aphra Behn, “On an ungrateful and undeserving Mistress, whom he cou’d not help Loving” in Poems upon Several Occasions, London: Francis Saunders, p. 50,${}^{[8]}$ ↩

17. 1795, Richard Cumberland, Henry ‎${}^{[9]}$, London: Charles Dilly, Volume 4, Book 10, Chapter 3, p. 18: ↩

18. 1844 Jun, Charles Lever, chapter 53, in Tom Burke of “Ours” ‎${}^{[10]}$, volume 2, Dublin: William Curry, page 31: ↩

19. 1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book 2, page 210: ↩

20. 1977, Susan Sontag, “The Heroism of Vision”, in On Photography ‎${}^{[11]}$, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 77: ↩

21. 1796, Maria Edgeworth, “The Mimic”, in The Parent’s Assistant; or, Stories for Children ‎${}^{[12]}$, volume 2, London: J. Johnson, page 98: ↩

22. 1922, Lenore Richards, Nola Treat, chapter 2, in Quantity Cookery, ‎${}^{[13]}$, Boston: Little, Brown, page 8: ↩

23. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 21:34: ↩

24. 1908 February 19, Jack London, chapter 17, in The Iron Heel, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 251: ↩

25. 1917, R. L. Alsaker, chapter 16, in Maintaining Health ‎${}^{[14]}$, New York: Frank E. Morrison, page 174: ↩

26. 1748, William Gilpin, A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honourable Viscount Cobham, at Stow in Buckinghamshire ‎${}^{[15]}$, London: B. Seeley, page 54: ↩

27. 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter I, in Jane Eyre. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 16: ↩

28. 1869, Mark Twain, chapter 47, in The Innocents Abroad ‎${}^{[16]}$, Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, page 496: ↩

29. c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]: ↩

30. 1642, Thomas Fuller, chapter 13, in The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC, book I, page 43: ↩

31. 1667 (revival performance), John Dryden, The Wild Gallant: A Comedy. […], In the Savoy[London]: […] T[homas] Newcomb for H[enry] Herringman, […], published 1669, →OCLC, Act II, page 17: ↩

32. 1861, Herbert Spencer, chapter 4, in Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical, ‎${}^{[17]}$, London: Williams and Norgate, page 149: ↩