It's the Word of the Day podcast for May 12th.

Today's word is Fester, spelled F-E-S-T-E-R. Fester is a verb, something that fester's becomes worse as time passes.

Fester can also mean, in the context

of wounds or sores, to become painful and infected. Here's the word used in a sentence from the

Dallas Morning News. Minor plumbing leaks left to fester have snowballed into water seeping down

walls and out-of-light fixtures.

Both noun and verb forms of the English word fester come from the Latin noun, fistula,

meaning pipe, or less pleasantly, fistulus ulcer.

Accordingly, the noun fester refers to a sore that forms or discharges pus,

while the oldest sense of the verb fester means to a sore that forms or discharges pus, while the oldest sense of the verb fester means to generate pus.

A boil, for example, is a festering infection of a hair follicle.

Over time, the verb, as many words do, picked up a figurative sense, and fester began to

be used not only for the worsening of a wound,

but for a worsening state or situation. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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