0 past simple and past participle of fester
1 If a cut or other injury festers, it becomes infected and produces pus:
a festering sore
2 If an argument or bad feeling festers, it continues so that feelings of hate or lack of satisfaction increase:
With starvation rampant, disease soon festered, and cholera and typhoid epidemics added to the already high fatalities.
Tensions festered but then broke forth in fresh calls for reform in which access to records was a point of practical and symbolic significance.
That is the seedbed on which the present dispute has grown and festered.
Perhaps above all it is that expulsion that has festered for over half a century.
The issue could have festered for weeks, causing uncertainty and massive damage to the industry.
It is one that has festered far too long.
There can then be no undercurrent of dissent festered by disenfranchisement.
The consequence of his allowing this rebellion to succeed was that it grew and it festered.
