Word of the Day Archive
Friday November 26, 1999
surfeit \SUR-fit\
, noun:
1. Excess; an excessive amount: a surfeit of speechmaking.
2. Excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking.
3. An uncomfortably full or crapulous feeling due to excessive eating or drinking.
4. General disgust caused by excess or satiety.
verb:
1. To bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drink.
2. To supply with anything to excess or satiety; satiate.
In both adults a surfeit of prudence and a surfeit of energy, and with the couple two boys still pretty much all soft surfaces, young children of youthful parents, keenly attractive and in good health and incorrigible only in their optimism.
-- Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
She peered at the parents, imagining their hearts like machines, manufacturing surfeit upon surfeit of love for their children, and then wondered how something could be so awesome and so utterly powerless.
-- Chris Adrian, The Great Night
Surfeit is a very old English word. It is recorded as early as 1393. It comes from the Latin roots sur- meaning "over" and facere meaning "to do."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for surfeit
