fester

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 19, 2026

"As a man you could just bottle it up... it will fester and grow and it can very quickly turn very, very dark," he says.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

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

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026

Salim says that both show the dangers of allowing pride to fester and swell unchecked.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026

As Cicero explains showily, he himself hesitates to directly order the banishment—because then, he says, not only would he appear cruel and tyrannical but Catiline’s coconspirators would still fester in the heart of the city.

From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith

However, momentum has been lost and the danger is that the problem now just festers for days, months or even years.

From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026

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

Below us Toronto festers in the evening heat, the trees spreading like worn moss, the lake zinc in the distance.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

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

The “ignominy” of missing action, we are told, remained a “badge of shame” that festered for the rest of his life, “driving him to seek reckless vindication” in confrontations with other men of his class.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 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

During that first summer and fall of sandy congestion and wind-blown boredom, the bitterness accumulated, the rage festered in hundreds of tarpapered cubicles like ours.

From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston

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

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026

This lends an intriguing additional layer to Iago’s festering, consuming hatred: Even his own wife is a potential rival, in addition to, he believes, having slept with Othello.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 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

Hedda wears bullet-like strands of pearls that choke her neck and a jade-colored gown that seems to molder into a festering, jealous shade of green.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2025

Minya, being Skathis’s daughter, had always had a festering bitterness at the core of her, that she hadn’t inherited his power—the one power that could have set them free.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor