surfeit
Americannoun
-
excess; an excessive amount.
a surfeit of speechmaking.
- Synonyms:
- superfluity, superabundance
- Antonyms:
- lack
-
excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking.
-
an uncomfortably full or crapulous feeling due to excessive eating or drinking.
-
general disgust caused by excess or satiety.
verb (used with object)
-
surfeits,
present (3rd person singular)
-
surfeited,
past participle, past
-
surfeiting
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
surfeits,
present (3rd person singular)
-
surfeited,
past participle, past
-
surfeiting
present participle
-
to eat or drink to excess.
-
to suffer from the effects of overindulgence in eating or drinking.
-
to indulge to excess in anything.
noun
-
(usually foll by of) an excessive or immoderate amount
-
overindulgence, esp in eating or drinking
-
disgust, nausea, etc, caused by such overindulgence
verb
-
(tr) to supply or feed excessively; satiate
-
archaic (intr) to eat, drink, or be supplied to excess
-
obsolete (intr) to feel uncomfortable as a consequence of overindulgence
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
surfeitsimple
-
surfeitssimple
-
have surfeitedperfect
-
has surfeitedperfect
-
am surfeitingprogressive
-
are surfeitingprogressive
-
is surfeitingprogressive
-
have been surfeitingperfect progressive
-
has been surfeitingperfect progressive
Past
-
surfeitedsimple
-
had surfeitedperfect
-
was surfeitingprogressive
-
were surfeitingprogressive
-
had been surfeitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of surfeit
1250–1300; (noun) Middle English sorfete, surfait < Middle French surfait, surfet (noun use of past participle of surfaire to overdo), equivalent to sur- sur- 1 + fait < Latin factus, past participle of facere to do ( see fact); (v.) sorfeten, derivative of the noun
Explanation
Steve baked a surfeit of jam tarts. Steve ate a surfeit of jam tarts. Steve surfeited himself on jam tarts. Whether surfeit is a noun or a verb (as in "overabundance" or "gorge"), Steve is likely to end up with a bellyache. Overabundance, glut, gorge, and cloy: These are all synonyms for surfeit, and they all convey a sense of too-much-ness, as does the Old French root of the word — surfaire, "to overdo." When it is used in reference to food or eating, surfeit tends to suggest indulging to the point of sickness or disgust. In other contexts, though, the meaning is not necessarily negative: "A surfeit of kindness," for example, would hardly be a bad thing.
Vocabulary lists containing surfeit
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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The Tragedy of Macbeth
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There's not exactly a surfeit of available and convincing candidates and Clarke is a proven operator who has become a serial qualifier for major tournaments.
From BBC ● May 28, 2026
The few other highlights in the show are overwhelmed by a surfeit of lifeless abstractions, eye-glazing prints and vacuous conceptual works.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
So by the time a public space opened up in 1977, the staff had a surfeit of wooden soapboxes containing jumbles of animal bones but little else.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
As a businesswoman, a single mother and a highly sensitive human, Moore made it through life thanks to a surfeit of loving kindness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2026
“I didn’t mean that,” said Harry, whose brain felt sluggish with exhaustion and from the surfeit of food and wine.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
The company built pellet plants across the southern U.S., moving into parts of the pinery where pulp and paper mills had closed and left behind surfeits of sawdust, wood chips and cheap pulpwood.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
Increasingly in the '80s, Halloween has become an escapist extravaganza for adults, a trickless treat that more closely resembles Mardi Gras than the candy-and-apple surfeits of yesteryear.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Opera with its lemans, the pink boudoir and its flossy hangings, the feast and its surfeits; we have even seen Moliere's doctor reappear, such need has this man of sarcasm and grotesqueness.
From Balzac by Frederick Lawton
More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are hot, than by any one thing I know.
From The Young Mother Management of Children in Regard to Health by William A. (William Andrus) Alcott
So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief; 'T is but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by, As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
From King Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare
Theatergoers, surfeited with entertainment options at home, have been less inclined to commit to season subscriptions, placing more pressure on programming to come up with sure-fire hits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2023
You’d think those of us who are keeping tabs might be surfeited by now, but a true theater lover can never have too much Sondheim.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2023
At this point, I'm so surfeited on natural spectacles, it's faintly disappointing not to see a troupe of all these things executing Busby Berkeley maneuvers for my personal delectation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 14, 2013
Meanwhile, the U.S., surfeited with food, has put 22.5 million acres of once productive land into its soil bank.
From Time Magazine Archive
I am sure it is surfeited with babies and is now coming after adults.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
What the Valentine's cards forget is that the lovesick duke who speaks the words wants to overeat so that "surfeiting/ The appetite may sicken, and so die."
From The Guardian ● Feb. 14, 2013
They were easier to swallow because they lacked liver's surfeiting taste, and a dessertspoonful in water or tomato juice once a day was sufficient for health.
From Time Magazine Archive
And yet there are not wanting malecontents amongst us, who, surfeiting themselves on too much happiness, would persuade the people that they might be happier by a change.
From The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 05 by Sir Walter Scott
Sir 37:31 By surfeiting have many perished; but he that taketh heed prolongeth his life.
From Deuterocanonical Books of the Bible Apocrypha by Anonymous
After surfeiting on romances whose scenes are laid abroad, it is delightful to come across a healthy home product like this.”
From The Mormon Puzzle, and How to Solve It by R. W. Beers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
