fester

A lengthy work-from-home period allowed conflicts to fester.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

That's why it needs sorting out now because it's such a bad look if it's allowed to fester.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

Given your reaction, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to let this fester.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026

But it doesn’t get better if we just leave the bubble to fester.

From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026

He felt a deep love for the runaway boy, like a wound, and yet felt at the same time that this wound was not intended to fester in him, but that it should heal.

From "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse

Farmers and herders clash over land in the centre of the country while a simmering separatist movement festers in the southeast.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

By your early 70s, the anxiety festers and grows.

From MarketWatch ● Mar. 26, 2026

With no immediate help from officers, the fear and anxiety festers inside you.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2025

Journalists who joined the patrol also witnessed what life has been like for the Philippine Coast Guard as the South China Sea dispute festers.

From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2023

Now everything resonates, sticks like a splinter, festers.

From "We Are Okay" by Nina LaCour

The current generation of players have decided now is the time to act on a disagreement that has festered for much of the past two decades.

From BBC ● May 27, 2026

But an uneasy tension festered behind the fanfare.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026

“We’ve been grinding hard, but it’s just a disappointing factor that others waited too long to do something about it, you know? That’s why it’s festered into this,” Hernandez said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2024

Wilson’s lead is a working-class Black man, a former Negro league superstar whose dreams festered when baseball’s color barrier prevented him from rising into the big leagues.

From Salon ● Sep. 12, 2024

His arms, poisoned by the sap, had festered and were seeping, swollen, and hot.

From "Messenger" by Lois Lowry

As earnings season gets under way, festering worries about artificial-intelligence stocks could be put to bed.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026

But with little progress on the issues festering and so much riding on their relationship, any reprieve could be temporary—and the space for surprises large.

From Barron's ● May 12, 2026

At a recent meeting of Save Our Domes, a local environmental group, a member described the proposed mines as “equivalent to a huge festering boil on the face of a family member.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 8, 2025

Such incidents have resurfaced the Indonesian public’s festering distrust of the police force, said Jacqui Baker, a scholar of Indonesian security and policing at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2025

The Allies’ insistence that Germany pay billions in war reparations was a source of festering resentment.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman