Foment vs Exacerbate - What's the difference?
foment | exacerbate |
To incite or cause troublesome acts; to encourage; to instigate.
(medicine) To apply a poultice to; to bathe with a cloth or sponge.
* 1904, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange , Norton (2005), page 1178,
To make worse (pain, anger, etc.); aggravate.
* 2013 , Louise Taylor, English talent gets left behind as Premier League keeps importing'' (in ''The Guardian , 20 August 2013)[http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/aug/19/english-talent-premier-league-importing]
As verbs the difference between foment and exacerbate
is that foment is to incite or cause troublesome acts; to encourage; to instigate while exacerbate is to make worse (pain, anger, etc.); aggravate.foment
English
Verb
(en verb)- He was arrested for fomenting a riot; after all, it's bad enough being in a riot but starting one is much worse.
- The maid had entered with us, and began once more to foment the bruise upon her mistress's brow.
Derived terms
* fomentationexacerbate
English
Verb
(exacerbat)- The proposed shutdown would exacerbate unemployment problems.
- The reasons for this growing disconnect are myriad and complex but the situation is exacerbated by the reality that those English players who do smash through our game's "glass ceiling" command radically inflated transfer fees.