Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Foment

Foment , transitive verb

[French fomenter, from Latin fomentare, from fomentum (for fovimentum) a warm application or lotion, from fovere to warm or keep warm; perh. akin to Greek {not transcribed} to roast, and English bake.]

1.
To apply a warm lotion to; to bathe with a cloth or sponge wet with warm water or medicated liquid.
2.
To cherish with heat; to foster. [Obsolete]
Which these soft fires... foment and warm. — Milton
3.
To nurse to life or activity; to cherish and promote by excitements; to encourage; to abet; to instigate; -- used often in a bad sense; as, to foment ill humors. — Locke
But quench the choler you foment in vain. — Dryden
Exciting and fomenting a religious rebellion. — Southey

Foment , noun

1.
Fomentation.
2.
State of excitation; -- perh. confused with ferment.
He came in no conciliatory mood, and the foment was kept up. — Julian Ralph