word of the day

foment \foh-MENT; FOH-ment\, transitive verb:
1. To nurse to life or activity; to incite; to abet; to instigate; -- often in a bad sense.

noun:
1. Fomentation; the act of fomenting.
2. State of excitation.

Today's word of the day is a result of CNN.com using this word in one of their breaking stories headlines the other day. I admit, despite being an avid crossword puzzler, before the other day I'd never heard of this word. A quick search tells that CNN has used this word in 336 articles - many of them recently published.