forment

Verb

foment (third-person singular simple present foments, present participle fomenting, simple past and past participle fomented)

1. (transitive) To incite or cause troublesome acts; to encourage; to instigate.
   • He was arrested for fomenting a riot; after all, it's bad enough being in a riot but starting one is much worse.

   Synonyms:

   bring about, provoke, abet, actuate, goose, fuel, light a fire under, send, sting, cheer

2. (transitive) To apply a poultice to; to bathe with a cloth or sponge.
   • Sties in the eye are irritating and disfiguring. Foment with warm water; at night apply a bread-and-milk poultice.1876, Eliza Bisbee Duffey, Our Behaviour: A Manual of Etiquette and Dress of the Best American Society, Philadelphia

   Synonyms:

   beath, poultice

See all 3 meanings of foment

Noun

formant (plural formants)

1. A band of frequencies in a sound spectrum that have greater intensity and determine the quality of a sound, especially the resonant frequencies of the vocal tract that determine the quality of vowels and sonorant consonants.
   • The resonances of the vocal tract are called formants. Trying to hear the separate formants in a vowel is difficult. We are so used to a vowel being a single meaningful entity that it is difficult to consider it as a sound with separable bits. But it is possible to say vowels so that some of their...2012, Peter Ladefoged, Sandra Ferrari Disner, Vowels and Consonants, Kindle edition, New York: Wiley, →ISBN