surfeiter


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sur·feit

 (sûr′fĭt)
v. sur·feit·ed, sur·feit·ing, sur·feits
v.tr.
To feed or supply to excess, satiety, or disgust.
v.intr. Archaic
To overindulge.
n.
1.
a. Overindulgence in food or drink.
b. The result of such overindulgence; satiety or disgust.
2. An excessive amount.
[Middle English surfeten, from surfait, excess, from Old French, from past participle of surfaire, to overdo : sur-, sur- + faire, to do (from Latin facere; see dhē- in Indo-European roots).]
sur′feit·er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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In the climactic murder scene, the vengeful hero stages a macabre parody of Elizabethan courtship, in which the poisoned skull, dressed like "some old gentlewoman in a periwig" (3.5.112), puts the "old surfeiter" (3.5.52) to sleep, permanently, with a kiss.
(37) I want to close by conjuring Shakespeare's old surfeiter, the general who in his "dotage" loves a queen whom "no other of nature can match or of art imitate," like Essex's Elizabeth.
Age in lust: Lyly's Endymion and the Court of Elizabeth I

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