Verb

(en verb)

To become septic; to become rotten.

* Milton

Wounds immedicable / Rankle, and fester , and gangrene.

To worsen, especially due to lack of attention.

Deal with the problem immediately; do not let it fester .

* Macaulay

Hatred festered in the hearts of the children of the soil.

To cause to fester or rankle.

* Marston

For which I burnt in inward, swelt'ring hate, / And fester'd rankling malice in my breast.

Verb

(relaps)

To fall back again; to slide or turn back into a former state or practice.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.}}

(intransitive, medicine, of a disease) To recur; to worsen, be aggravated.

To slip or slide back physically; to turn back.

(Dryden)