perfit

English

Adjective

perfit (comparative more perfit, superlative most perfit)

1. Obsolete form of perfect.
   • 1624, John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation I., in The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, ed. Charles M. Coffin, New York: Modern Library (1952), pp. 415-416:

     … as if he would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water upon the coales, so to wrap a hote fever in cold Melancholy, least the fever alone should not destroy fast enough, without this contribution nor perfit the work (which is destruction) except we joynd an artificiall sicknes, of our owne melancholy, to our natural, our unnaturall fever.

Middle English

Adjective

perfit

1. perfect
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Knyghtes Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC, column 2, lines 412–414:

     That yf I might scape fro prison / Then had I bene in ioye and perfyt hele / There nowe I am exiled fro my wele.

     That if I might escape from prison I would be in joy and perfect health, whereas now I am exiled from my happiness.