fester

We start talking about relationships and unhealthy withdrawal and letting things fester to the point that when the emotions come out, it feels abrupt and the other person has no idea what’s going on.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

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

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026

Psychiatric researchers are referring to the confluence of these three characteristics—sycophancy, linguistic alignment and hyperpersonalization—as the “amplification spiral,” suggesting it’s the mechanism by which delusional thinking can fester.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026

Despite this, he's facing a dwindling number of volunteers and donors - a symptom, as he puts it, of a town "left to fester" in economic strife.

From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026

“He said we can’t hide from our fears. We have to be able to talk about them, or else they’ll fester like poison, eating us from the inside.”

From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia

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

The trial will revisit one of the most searing manifestations of how hatred and intolerance that festers online can spread onto the streets.

From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2021

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

If the rise of farming was thus a bonanza for our microbes, the rise of cities was a greater one, as still more densely packed human populations festered under even worse sanitation conditions.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

One had a festering cut on his shin that he said he got from a fall on the rocks near the beach.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

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

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

Stale and wilted flowers, rejected downtown, blazed feverishly on a cart, like glamorous rags festering beneath a futile spray from a punctured fruit juice can.

From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison