surfeit

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

2024-04-12

2 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 12, 2024 is: surfeit SER-fut noun What It Means Surfeit is a formal word that refers to an amount or supply that is too much or more than you need. It is synonymous with the word excess. // The organization ended up with a surfeit of volunteers who simply got in each other's way. cynosure in Context "Pet owners can have a tougher time finding apartments because of the surfeit of landlords who don't allow dogs, cats or other animals in their buildings." — Andrew J. Campa, The Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2024 Did You Know? There is an abundance—you could almost say a surfeit—of English words that come from the Latin verb facere, meaning "to do." The connection to facere is fairly obvious for words spelled with "fic," "fac," or "fec," such as sacrifice, fact, and infect. For words like stupefy (a modification of the Latin word stupefacere) and hacienda (originally, in Old Spanish and Latin, facienda) the facere relation is not so apparent. As for surfeit, a "c" was dropped along the path that led from Latin through Anglo-French, where facere became faire ("to do") and sur- was added to make the verb surfaire, meaning "to overdo." It is the Anglo-French noun surfet ("excess"), however, that Middle English borrowed, eventually settling on the spelling surfeit.
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 12th.

  • Today's word is surfeit, spelled S-U-R-F-E-I-T.

  • Surfeit is a noun.

  • It's a formal word that refers to an amount or supply that is too much or more than you need.

  • It is synonymous with the word excess.

  • Here's the word used in a sentence from the LA Times.

  • Pet owners can have a tougher time finding apartments because of the surfeit of landlords who don't allow dogs,

  • cats, or other animals in their buildings.

  • There is an abundance, you could almost say a surfeit,

  • of English words that come from the Latin verb fecare, meaning to do.

  • The connection to facare is fairly obvious for words spelled with F-I-C,

  • F-A-C, or F-E-C, such as sacrifice, fact, and in fact.

  • For words like stupify, a modification of the Latin word stupe facare, and hacienda,

  • originally in Old Spanish and Latin, facienda, the facare relation is not so apparent.

  • As for surfait, a sea was dropped along the path that led from Latin through Anglo-French,

  • where facaré became fer, meaning to do, and sur was added to make surfer, meaning to overdo.

  • It's the Anglo-French noun surfait, surfait, meaning excess, however, that Middle English borrowed,

  • eventually settling on the spelling in English, S-U-R-F-E-I-T.

  • With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.