Fester v.

Forms: 5 fe(e)stryn, (feestern), (5 festur, feyster), 5–6 festyr, (6 feaster), 4– fester. [f. prec. sb.; OF. had festrir in similar senses.]

  1.  intr. Of a wound or sore: To become a fester, to gather or generate pus or matter, to ulcerate.

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XVII. 92. So festred ben his woundis.

1414.  Brampton, Penit. Ps. xxxv. (Percy Soc.), 18. My woundes festryn and rotyn with inne.

1530.  Palsgr., 548/2. Though this wounde be closed above, yet it feastreth byneth and is full of mater.

1635.  R. Bolton, Comf. Affl. Consc., xvi. 315. Draw a skinne onely over the spirituall wound whereby it festers and rankles underneath more dangerously.

1747.  Wesley, Prim. Physic (1762), 91. A Prick or Cut that festers. Apply Turpentine.

1862.  Merivale, Rom. Emp., V. xliii. 205. The wound festered in silence and concealment.

  b.  Of poison, an imbedded arrow, a disease: To envenom the surrounding parts progressively; to rankle. Hence fig. of resentment, grief, etc.

1589.  R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1860), 18. His owne poison would haue festered in his owne flesh.

a. 1639.  Wotton, in Reliq. (1651), 112. There had been ancient quarrels not yet well healed, which might perhaps lye festering in his breast.

1695.  Blackmore, Prince Arthur, III. 489.

1781.  J. Moore, View Soc. It. (1790), I. xii. 132. A strong resentment of those innovations, however, festered in the breasts of some individuals, who a few years after, under the direction of one Marino Bocconi, formed a design to assassinate Gradonico, and massacre all the grand council, without distinction.

1869.  Lecky, Europ. Mor., II. v. 301. The existence in England of unhappy women, sunk in the very lowest depths of vice and misery, and numbering certainly not less than fifty thousand, shows sufficiently what an appalling amount of moral evil is festering uncontrolled, undiscussed, and unalleviated, under the fair surface of a decorous society.

1871.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xviii. 119. The troubles of Saxony and Thuringia, if they had not yet broken forth, were already festering in silence.

1874.  Green, Short Hist., iii. § 6. 145. The rapid progress of the population within the boroughs had outstripped the sanitary regulations of the Middle Ages, and fever or plague, or the terrible scourge of leprosy, festered in the wretched hovels of the suburbs.

  c.  To fester into: to become or pass into by festering, lit. and fig.

c. 1420.  Pallad. on Husb., XI. 48.

1777.  Burke, Let. Sheriffs of Bristol, Wks. III. 141. Smitten pride smarting from its wounds, festers into new rancour. Ibid. (1790), Fr. Rev., 212. I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes.

  2.  To putrefy, rot; to become pestiferous or loathsome by corruption.

1540.  Taverner, Epist. Ester daye, Postil. The leven of malice roted & festred in us.

1599.  Shaks., Hen. V., IV. iii. 28.

1628.  Prynne, Cens. Cozens, 70. Their sickly Soules fester, rot and pine away.

c. 1820.  S. Rogers, Italy, Lake of Geneva, 33.

1883.  G. W. Cable, The Great South Gate, in Century Mag., XXVI., June, 218/1. Canal street, the center and pride of New Orleans, takes its name from the slimy old moat that once festered under the palisade wall of the Spanish town.

  3.  trans. To cause festering in (lit. and fig.); to allow (malice) to rankle.

1579.  Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 47. All which humors are by so much the more easier to be purged, by how much the lesse they haue festred the sinewes.

1602.  Marston, Antonio’s Rev., I. i. Wks. 1856, I. 74.

1697.  Congreve, Mourn. Bride, III. vi.

1706.  Estcourt, Fair Examp., V. i. Luc. Take heed, lest your ungentle Hand shou’d fester what you mean to heal.

1818.  Mrs. Shelley, Frankenstein, vi. (1865), 89. With feelings of peace and gentleness, that will heal, instead of festering, the wounds of our minds.

1850.  Mrs. Browning, Prom. Bound, Poems, I. 148.

  absol.  a. 1592.  Greene, Orpharion, Wks. (Grosart), XII. 16. Giuing them one day an incarnatiue to heale, and the next day, a contrary medicine to fester.

  † 4.  = CICATRIZE I. Obs.

c. 1440.  Bone Flor., 1944.

1541.  R. Copland, Galyen’s Terapeutyke, 2 F iv b. Lykewyse in the vlceres … that y^t is egal to be festred [Lat. Galen, Methodi Med., IV. v., Quod æquabile est, cicatrice induci].