Word.ws English Dictionary

fester

Syllables: fes·ter/ˈfɛstə/US/ˈfɛstɚ/

fester noun: a fistula.

Noun

fester (plural festers)

  1. (obsolete) A fistula.
  2. A sore or an ulcer of the skin.
    • 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...1848, Samuel Maunder, “SPIDERS. (Arachnida.)”, in The Treasury of Natural History; or, A Popular Dictionary of Animated Nature: In which the Zoological Characteristics that Distinguish the Different...
    • 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...1861, Benjamin Ridge, “Medical and Self Torture”, in Ourselves, Our Food, and Our Physic, London: Chapman and Hall, 193 Piccadilly, →OCLC, page 68
  3. The condition of something that festers; a festering; a festerment.

Verb

fester (third-person singular simple present festers, present participle festering, simple past and past participle festered)

  1. (intransitive) To become septic; to become rotten.
    • 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...1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur Book XIX, Chapter x, leaf 394v
    • [W]ounds immedicable / Ranckle, and feſter, and gangrene, / To black mortification.1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 42, lines...
    Synonyms:
    putrefy, rot, decay, decompose
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) 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.1855, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XVII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume IV, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 116
  3. (transitive) 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: […]c. 1599–1600, John Marston, Antonios Reuenge. The Second Part. As it hath beene Sundry Times Acted, by the Children of Paules, London: Printed [by Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, and are to be...

Proper noun capitalized: Fester

Fester (plural Festers)

  1. A surname from German.

fester meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

fester in Tamil

சீழொழுக்கு, சீழ் ஆதல், திசு அழிவு, திசு அழுகல்

fester in Urdu

خراب ہو جانا, پیپ بھر آنا

fester in Bengali

পুঁজ হওয়া, ঘা পচে যাওয়া

fester in Malayalam

പഴുക്കുക, പുണ്ണാവുക, ചലംവയ്ക്കുക, വ്രണമാകുക
More languagesFewer languages
fester in Kannada
ಹುಣ್ಣಾಗು, ಕೊರಗು
fester in Odia
ଶଢ଼ିବା śaṛhibā
fester in Arabic
تَقَيَّحَ taqayyaḥa

Examples of fester in a sentence

  • 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.1864 July, “The Rim. Part III.—Conclusion.”, in The Atlantic Monthly. A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics, volume XIV, number...
  • 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.2014, Lu Hsiu-lien, Ashley Esarey, My Fight for a New Taiwan, University of Washington Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 240:
  • Don't expect anything new from her human counterparts, though, just the usual shooting and running and hiding slowly festering flesh wounds.2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The A.V. Club...
  • But the longer the problems are left to fester, the worse they will become.2024 April 3, Philip Haigh, “Discord over Avanti West Coast is part of a wider problem”, in RAIL, number 1006, page 53:

All 10 example sentences with fester

Synonyms of fester

Forms of fester

Noun
pluralfesters
Verb
third-person singular presentfesters
present participlefestering
past participlefestered
pastfestered
Proper noun
pluralFesters

Plural of fester: festers

Origin of fester

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.

Borrowed from German Fester.

Words formed from fester

Words that rhyme with fester

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fester

What does fester mean?
Fester means a fistula.
What is fester in Tamil?
Fester in Tamil is சீழொழுக்கு, சீழ் ஆதல், திசு அழிவு. See Fester meaning in Tamil.
How do you use fester in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is fester?
Fester can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce fester?
Fester is pronounced /ˈfɛstə/ (UK).
What is the plural of fester?
The plural of fester is festers.

Words near fester in the dictionary

  1. festal
  2. festally
  3. festas
  4. festbier
  5. festbiers
  6. fester
  7. festered
  8. festereth
  9. festering
  10. festeringly
  11. festerings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fester (page history and authors); Fester (page history and authors); fester (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fester (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Fester (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fester (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fester (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ଶଢ଼ିବା (Odia) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-fester.ogg, en-au-fester.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fester.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fester. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.