foment
verb (used with object)
to instigate or foster (discord, rebellion, etc.); promote the growth or development of.
were fomenting
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past progressiveof foment.past progressive
Used to describe an ongoing action or continuous state that was happening at a specific time in the past.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Pincus coined the phrase “revolution of the ants” to describe what he and his friends believed they were fomenting.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 12, 2015
By the late 1980s, while her contemporaries at Goldsmiths were fomenting a Britart revolution, Ray had established herself at a gallery in Drury Lane doing copies of Renoir, Monet, Caravaggio, Stubbs, Gauguin and Modigliani.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 22, 2013
It was Mr. Hay's task to keep Great Britain neutral and prevent her joining the general alliance to help Spain, which some of the continental governments were fomenting.
From My Memories of Eighty Years by Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell) Depew
Unfortunately, misunderstandings arose, and from a mistaken belief that they were fomenting discord and sedition, the chiefs caused them to be deported to San Pedro, California, in January, 1832.
From The Hawaiian Islands Their Resources, Agricultural, Commercial and Financial by Hawaii. Dept. of Foreign Affairs
It was Esquire Greenville's misfortune to come to his patrimony just as those unhappy troubles were fomenting which a few years after embroiled these kingdoms in one great and dismal Quarrel.
From The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave among the moors... by George Augustus Sala
