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 \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 \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.
These unbridled attacks were grist for the mill of the real fascists, who used these exaggerations to prove that a surfeit of freedom of speech was endangering the very survival of the Soviet Union.
Orders were also down because a surfeit of chips, combined with economic uncertainty, is encouraging computer makers and other chip buyers to cut inventories to the bone.
"We will not lead prices down," he says, conceding nonetheless that the surfeit of U.S. steelmaking capacity means "pricing power is by and large in the hands of the buyer."
And because throughout this decade the war between the government and the guerrillas has, by and large, been reported from one side only, the surfeit of famine coverage has often been misleading.
Whereas a lack of growth hormone causes dwarfism, a surfeit of the hormone triggers giantism, with an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and colon polyps.
He was a California surfer of the 1960s given to ricocheting off walls after a surfeit of the drink's direct ancestor, then named a Doozie.
Of course, the presence of a JoAnne Carner of any size is good news for the women's golf tour, which, like its male counterpart, does not suffer from a surfeit of names with marquee value.
Hold on to your fast forward buttons, Brits, and prepare for a surfeit of Falklands war memorabilia - particularly from the BBC.
Manchester has acquired a surfeit of infrastructure.
They hadn't, though even in English I found its hairy-chestedness silly. If there is not much drama about at present, there is a surfeit of first-rate documentaries.
It is perhaps the coincidence of the above two dynamics that only makes it appear that the RTC is causing a surfeit of reserves to appear within the banking system immediately following closures and recapitalizations of ailing institutions.
For anyone suffering from a surfeit of Morse and Home Counties escapism it will be a relief to welcome back Taggart, the Glasgow cop who is as gritty and down to earth as his city.