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fester

noun
/ˈfɛstə(ɹ)/UK/ˈfɛstɚ/US

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.

  1. derived from fistula
  2. derived from festre
  3. inherited from festre

Definitions

  1. A fistula.

  2. A sore or an ulcer of the skin.

    • 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

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

  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. To become septic

      To become septic; to become rotten.

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

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

      • 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.

    3. To cause to fester or rankle.

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

    4. A surname from German.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for fester. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA