fester
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: medicine
pathology
sciences
Etymology: Inherited from Middle English festre, festur, borrowed from Old French festre (cognate with Italian fistola, Occitan fistola, Spanish fístula), from Latin fistula. The verb is derived from the noun, while the “condition of something that festers” noun sense is derived from the verb. Doublet of fistula.
Inflected forms:
form: festers
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: festers
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: festering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: festered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: festered
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A fistula.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
gloss: A sore or an ulcer of the skin.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: The condition of something that festers; a festering; a festerment.
pos: noun
gloss: To become septic; to become rotten.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: 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.
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.
gloss: To worsen, especially due to lack of attention.
pos: verb
tags: 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.
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.
gloss: To cause to fester or rankle.
pos: verb
tags: 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: […]
Derived words: festeringly
festerment
festerous
festery
unfestered
Translations: