{"id":7129,"date":"2025-08-06T03:05:51","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T03:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7129"},"modified":"2025-08-06T03:07:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T03:07:49","slug":"word-of-the-day-surfeit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/08\/06\/word-of-the-day-surfeit\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Surfeit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is surfeit<\/em>. Pronounced \/ \u02c8s\u025cr f\u026at \/, it can be used as a noun or as a verb. As a noun, it means \u201cexcess; an excessive amount,\u201d \u201cexcess or overindulgence in eating or drinking,\u201d \u201can uncomfortably full or crapulous feeling due to excessive eating or drinking,\u201d or \u201cgeneral disgust caused by excess or satiety\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/surfeit<\/a>). [BTW, crapulous<\/em> means \u201cmarked by intemperance especially in eating or drinking\u201d or \u201csick from excessive indulgence in liquor\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/crapulous<\/a>); also, crapulous<\/em> has no etymological relationship to the somewhat crude word crap<\/em>, which comes from the Middle English crappe<\/em>, which comes from Norman French. Maybe I\u2019ll make that a word of the day in the future.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a transitive verb, it means \u201cto bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drinkto bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drink\u201d or \u201cto supply with anything to excess or satiety; satiate\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/surfeit<\/a>). As an intransitive verb, it means \u201cto eat or drink to excess,\u201d \u201cto suffer from the effects of overindulgence in eating or drinking,\u201d or \u201cto indulge to excess in anything\u201d (ibid.). I have to say that I have never heard or read the word surfeit<\/em> used as an intransitive word, but I haven\u2019t read everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears in the English language in the \u201cearly 14c., surfet<\/em>, \u2018excess quantity;\u2019 late 14c., \u2018immoderate behavior, unhealthy overindulgence,\u2019 especially in food and drink, \u2018gluttony\u2019 (the usual later sense), from Old French sorfet<\/em> \u2018excess; arrogance\u2019 (Modern French surfait<\/em>). This is a noun use of the past participle of surfaire<\/em> \u2018overdo,\u2019 from sur-<\/em> \u2018over\u2019 (see sur-<\/strong><\/a> (1)) + faire<\/em> \u2018do,\u2019 from Latin facere<\/em> \u2018to make, do\u2019 (from PIE root *dhe-<\/strong><\/a> \u2018to set, put\u2019).
\u201cUsed by 1510s in reference to the feeling of fullness and oppression resulting from overindulgence; figuratively, \u2018disgust caused by excess, satiety,\u2019 1640s\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=surfeit<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merriam-Webster says, \u201cThere is an abundance\u2014you could almost say a surfeit\u2014of English words that come from the Latin verb facere<\/em>, meaning \u2018to do.\u2019 The connection to facere<\/em> is fairly obvious for words spelled with \u2018fic,\u2019 \u2018fac,\u2019 or \u2018fec,\u2019 such as sacrifice<\/a>, fact<\/a>, and infect<\/a>. For words like stupefy<\/a> (a modification of the Latin word stupefacere<\/em>) and hacienda<\/a> (originally, in Old Spanish and Latin, facienda<\/em>) the facere<\/em> relation is not so apparent. As for surfeit<\/em>, a \u2018c\u2019 was dropped along the path that led from Latin through Anglo-French, where facere<\/em> became faire<\/em> (\u2018to do\u2019) and sur-<\/em> was added to make the verb surfaire<\/em>, meaning \u2018to overdo.\u2019 It is the Anglo-French noun surfet<\/em> (\u2018excess\u2019), however, that Middle English borrowed, eventually settling on the spelling surfeit<\/em>\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/surfeit<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I generally look through the On This Day (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/august\/5<\/a>, for instance) to find things to write about. I look for the unusual, the curious, the needing explanation. I try to make it different; you know, not always sports, not always history, not always politicians, not always entertainment. So for today\u2019s post I was looking at the website, and what follows is what struck me. [BTW, I hate that approach for speeches: \u201cI was thinking about what I would say to you today\u2026.\u201d No. We don\u2019t care about your process; tell us what you think we should know.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 135, \u201cBetar, the last outpost of Bar Kochba, falls to Rome\u201d (ibid., and all the rest of the quotations will be coming from this website), and I\u2019m assuming that \u201cfalls to\u201d implies a military event. On this date in 642, \u201cBattle of Maserfield: British Anglo-Saxon King Penda of Mercia defeats and kills Oswald of Bernicia.\u201d On this date in 910, \u201cThe last major Viking army to raid England, led by King Edward and Earl \u00c6thelred, is defeated at the Battle of Tettenhall by the allied forces of Mercia and Wessex.\u201d On this date in 1305, \u201cScottish resistance leader William Wallace is captured by the English near Glasgow and transported to London for trial and execution.\u201d OTD in 1399, \u201cBattle of Vorskla: Tatars defeat Russians and Lithuanians.\u201d OTD in 1435, \u201cBattle of Ponza: King Alfonso V<\/a> of Aragon is captured by the under Andrea Doria, capturing seven galleys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you see the pattern? Oh, there are a few, perhaps a very few, non-military events, like the crowning of a king or a natural disaster, but for the most part the first half or two-thirds is military battles, people (mostly men) killing other people in order to benefit this king or that emperor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, on this date in 1921, \u201cKDKA Pittsburgh presents the first radio broadcast of MLB as the Pirates beat the Phillies 8-0 with Harold Arlin as the first play-by-play broadcaster.\u201d OTD in 1927, \u201cPhillies outfielder Cy Williams hits for the cycle in just four at-bats in a 9-7 victory against the Pirates.\u201d OTD in 1936, \u201cAmerican athlete Jesse Owens<\/a> wins the 200 m in a world record time of 20.7 seconds, his third gold medal of the Berlin Olympics.\u201d Also, \u201cItalian athlete Ondina Valla runs a world record time of 11.6 seconds in the semifinals of the 80 m hurdles at the Berlin Olympics; wins the final the next day but can’t match the time.\u201d Also, \u201cKen Carpenter (50.48 Olympic record) and Gordon Dunn achieve an American 1-2 finish in the men\u2019s discus throw at the Berlin Olympics.\u201d OTD in 1940, \u201cSt. Louis Browns pitcher John Whitehead no-hits the Detroit Tigers 4-0 in six innings (rain-shortened).\u201d OTD in 1948, \u201cAmericans Sammy Lee and Bruce Harlan go 1-2 in the 10 m platform diving at the London Olympics.\u201d Also, \u201cJamaica achieves a 1-2 finish in the men’s 400 m at the London Olympics, with Arthur Wint (46.2) defeating teammate Herb McKenley for the gold medal.\u201d OTD in 1961, \u201cChicago Bears (NFL) beat Montreal Alouettes (CFL) 34-16 in a pre-season exhibition at Molson Stadium in Montreal.\u201d OTD in 1969, \u201cPirates outfielder Willie Stargell smashes his first and longest home run ever hit out of Dodger Stadium; the incomparable shot off Alan Foster measures 506 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, yes. There were plenty of battles and a lot of killing in the twentieth century. But battles aren\u2019t virtually the only thing reported. Now, part of that is that there is more reporting of everyday events in the 20th<\/sup> century\u2014I get that. But isn\u2019t it also possible that as the world has become richer (there was no 8-hours-per-day, 5-days-per-week work schedule in the Middle Ages), society has responded with more entertainment, particularly the entertainment of people competing athletically. Yes, the Olympics do go back to ancient Greece, but it was much more of an occasional thing. In fact, sports seem to dominate the world, even in places like Saudi Arabia. We have replaced a surfeit of violence with a cornucopia of athletic events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is of Jesse Owens: \u201cJesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany\u201d (https:\/\/allthatsinteresting.com\/jesse-owens-olympics<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is surfeit. Pronounced \/ \u02c8s\u025cr f\u026at \/, it can be used as a noun or as a verb. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[876,238,395,284,875],"class_list":["post-7129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-athletics","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-surfeit","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7131,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7129\/revisions\/7131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}