surcharge

plural surcharges

1. An addition of extra charge on the agreed, stated, or baseline price. Sometimes portrayed by a buyer as excessive and rapacious; usually portrayed by a seller as justified and necessary.

   Our airline tickets cost twenty dollars more than we expected because we had to pay a fuel surcharge.

2. The part of the price of a subsidized good or service that is not covered by the subsidy and so must be paid by the consumer.
3. hobbiesAn overprint on a stamp that alters (usually raises) the original nominal value of the stamp; used especially in times of hyperinflation.
4. artA painting in lighter enamel over a darker one that serves as the ground.
5. lawA charge that has been omitted from an account as payment of a credit to the charged party
6. lawA penalty for failure to exercise common prudence and skill in the performance of a fiduciary's duties.
7. obsoleteAn excessive load or burden.

   A Numerous Nobility, cauſet Pouerty, and Inconuenience in a State: For it is a Surcharge of Expence;

   1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Nobility. XIIII.”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC, page 73

8. obsoletelawThe putting, by a commoner, of more animals on the common than he is entitled to.

present singular third person surcharges · participle present surcharging · participle past surcharged · past surcharged

1. To apply a surcharge.
2. To overload; to overburden.

   to surcharge an animal or a ship; to surcharge a cannon

   4 more examples

   My heauy hart I feare will breake in twaine, Surcharged with a heauie loade of thoughts.

   1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I

   Your head reclin’d, (as hiding grief from view,) / Droops, like a Roſe ſurcharg’d with morning Dew.

   1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, Act III, page 33

   The threat was soon fulfilled; the evening came on, prematurely darkened by clouds that seemed surcharged with a deluge.

   1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 150

   The first, on January 1, 1883, was attributed to the overlay becoming surcharged with water, due to insufficient drainage, and causing a slip.

   1943 March and April, “A British Avalanche Shelter”, in Railway Magazine, page 80

3. lawTo overstock; especially, to put more cattle into (e.g. a common) than one has a right to do, or more than the herbage will sustain.

   Another diſturbance of common is by ſurcharging it; or putting more cattle therein than the paſture and herbage will ſuſtain, or the party hath a right to do.

   1768, William Blackstone, “Of Disturbance”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 237

4. To show an omission in (an account) for which credit ought to have been given.

   The Idle multitude surcharge their laies

   1599, Samuel Daniel, Musophilus