fester — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A fistula.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

2. A sore or an ulcer of the skin.

   Examples

   More examples (3)

   The larger the Spider, the warmer the climate or season of the year, and the more susceptible the wounded individual, so much worse will the effects be; and it is no therefore no wonder that people who would have a fester from a simple prick with a needle, should feel more violent effects from the bite of a Spider.

   While to the fingers and toes, which are frequently the seat of spontaneous festers, &c., irritation is kept up [if a hot poultice is applied], the skin is thickened, and rendered less liable to be permeated by matter; the heat is driven down the soft structures to the very bones and joints, and a portion of them may be lost in consequence.

   He has been away so long and so often, there has been such mismanagement under a long minority, such changes and such misrule, such a hard hand and such a high hand, that the whole place is a fester.

3. The condition of something that festers; a festering; a festerment.

Verb

1. To become septic; to become rotten.

   Usage

   • Intransitive

   Synonyms

   putrefyrotdecaydecompose

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   and she for the despyte of her sones dethe wrought by her subtyl craftes that syr Vrre shold neuer be hole but euer his woundes shold one tyme feyster & another tyme blede "and she, for the despite of her son’s death, wrought by her subtle crafts that Sir Urre should never be whole, but ever his wounds should one time fester and another time bleed"

   [W]ounds immedicable / Ranckle, and feſter, and gangrene, / To black mortification.

   More examples (2)

   On the day of my inauguration, the director of the Nationalist Party county office ordered the Chungli mayor to stop trash collection. Because I could not command the Chungli sanitation department directly—it is administered at the local level—piles of garbage began to fester on the streets.

   Here, Melanie once again provides an interesting variation on the formula, serving as a scout and ambassador between worlds. Don't expect anything new from her human counterparts, though, just the usual shooting and running and hiding slowly festering flesh wounds.

2. To worsen, especially due to lack of attention.

   Usage

   • Figurative
   • Intransitive

   Examples

   Deal with the problem immediately; do not let it fester.

   All this time hatred, kept down by fear, festered in the hearts of the children of the soil.

   More examples (2)

   But the longer the problems are left to fester, the worse they will become.

   Trump’s speech had the fingerprints of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of his draconian immigration policy, all over it. It chimed with an entire discourse of white identity politics festering on the US right.

3. To cause to fester or rankle.

   Usage

   • Transitive

   Examples

   For which I burnt in inward sweltring hate, / And festred rankling malice in my breast, / Till I might belke revenge upon his eyes: […]

Noun

1. a sore that has become inflamed and formed pus

   Synonyms

   suppurating sore

   Broader terms

   sore

Verb

1. ripen and generate pus

   Synonyms

   maturatesuppurate

   Broader terms

   exhaustdischargeexpelejectrelease

   Examples

   her wounds are festering