Definition of "surcease"
surcease
noun
countable and uncountable, plural surceases
Cessation; stop, stopping; end. Respite, intermission.
Quotations
And first of all, it is more then time, there were an ende and surcease made of this immodest and deformed manner of writting latelie entertained, whereby matter of religion is handled in the stile of the stage.
1589, Francis Bacon, “An advertisment touchinge the controversies of the Church of England”, in Frank J. Burgoyne, editor, Northumberland Manuscripts, London: Longmans, Green & Co, published 1904, page 36
It it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly: if the assassination / Could trammel up the consequence, and catch / With his surcease success;
c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene vii]
[…] old age is still old age.It is the waning, not the crescent moon,The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon:It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,The burning and consuming element,But that of ashes and of embers spent […]
1875, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Morituri Salutamus”, in The Masque of Pandora, and Other Poems, Boston: James R. Osgood, page 90
[…] the time came when he sickened of the whole affair, and withdrew his agent, and took whatever gain from it the actor apportioned him. He was apt to have these sudden surceases, following upon the intensities of his earlier interest […]
1910, William Dean Howells, chapter 6, in My Mark Twain: Reminiscences and Criticisms, New York: Harper & Bros., page 23
verb
third-person singular simple present surceases, present participle surceasing, simple past and past participle surceased
(intransitive) To come to an end; to desist.
Quotations
[…] this distilled liquor drink thou off; / When presently through all thy veins shall run / A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse / Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]
And instantly the storm surceases, the heavens clear, the sun comes forth in splendour, as a king entering the audience-hall, and sheds the glory of his presence over ship and sea and land.
1899, Zénaïde A. Ragozin, Frithjof, The Viking of Norway in Frithjof, The Viking of Norway and Roland, The Paladin of France, Tales of the Heroic Ages, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Chapter 9, p. 67