Also fomentor. [f. FOMENT v. + -ER1.] One who or that which foments.
1633. Prynne, Histrio-Mastix, I. III. ii. 75. Prohibited all Sword-Playes, Duels, and such like Cruell, and Bloody Spectacles; as misbeseeming Christian hands to act, or eyes to see; because they were but so many Incendiaries, and Fomentors of Crueltie, Quarrells, Murthers, and Reuenge.
1660. Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. 360. Not only that such lectures in the nation had been fomenters of the late rebellion, but that at present [they] did continue and nourish faction.
1710. Hearne, Collect., 6 March. A Proclamation is come out offering a Reward of an hundred Pounds to any one that shall discover and secure any one of the Fomenters and Abettors of the Riot.
1780. Coxe, Russ. Disc., I. xi. 138–9. Nineteen of them were killed, amongst whom was Inlogusak one of the leaders, and the most inveterate fomenter of hostilities against the Russians.
c. 1817. Hogg, The Siege of Roxburgh, in Tales & Sk. (1837), VI. 116. In a few hours will be placed in your hands the primal cause and fomentor of this cruel and bloody war, the Lady Jane Howard.
1866. Bright, Sp. Reform, 4 Dec. I say that Lord Derby, as the representative of his party in Parliament, is himself the fomenter of discord, and that his party, and not our party, is at this moment the turbulent element in English political society.
