Other forms: fomenting, fomented, foments
To foment is to stir up trouble on purpose. Foment unrest, foment a rebellion, foment discord.
It nearly always takes something bad as its object, so nobody foments goodwill. The Latin is a warm poultice, and the sense of applying heat is what carried across.
1verbfomentTo stir up trouble deliberately.
“The pamphlets were written to foment unrest in the ports.”
foment is a stirring up.
Latin fomentum meant a warm dressing, from fovere, to heat or cherish; to foment was to apply warmth before it meant to stir up.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰegʷʰ-
Latin
fōmentō
Old French
fomenter
Middle English
fomenten
English, today
foment
Built from
From Middle English fomenten, a borrowing from Old French fomenter, from Latin fōmentō, from Latin fōmentum (“lotion”), from foveō (“heat, cherish”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA