freshen

verb

Etymology: Etymology tree English fresh English -en English freshen From fresh + -en.

1. To become fresh.

   “Ah, how my spirit freshens, as I taste That life-restoring breeze!”

   “He descended and came to a small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs. Troy’s nature freshened within him; he thought he would rest and bathe here before going farther.”

2. To become fresh.

   “1793, uncredited translator, The Natural History of Birds by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, London: A. Strahan and T. Cadell, Volume 4, “The Titiri, or Pipiri,” p. 468, They breed, says M. Deshayes, in the heats of autumn, and during the freshening air of winter, at St. Domingo …”

   “We set out at once, swinging along at a good gait in the freshening afternoon, walking now the track, now the road which skirted it [...]”

3. To become fresh.

   “He coasted along the American Continent from the 60th degree of northern latitude, till he fell in with the Gulph of St. Lawrence, which he continued to navigate till he perceived the water to freshen;”

   “They [...] drank from fresh-water lakes formed where old salt ice had freshened and melted [...]”

4. To become stronger.

   “[...] the wind freshen’d, and carryed our Maintop-mast by the board; in which disaster, the man that was lower-most, and least in danger, fell over-board, and was drowned;”

   “[...] he call’d his chief Mate as he was going off from the Watch, and ask’d him how all things far’d; who answer’d, that all was well, and the Gale freshen’d, and they run at a great Rate;”

5. To begin or resume giving milk, especially after calving; to cause to resume giving milk.

   “For Sale—Three registered holstein cows. Due to freshen the first of Jan. February and March. Prices that will sell. Age three and five years. Eugune Gibson, Smyrna.”

   “The cow freshened the week before Christmas. The calf was a heifer and there was rejoicing on Baxter’s Island.”

6. To make fresh.

   “1657, John Davies (translator), Astrea by Honoré d'Urfé, London: H. Moseley et al., Volume 2, Part 3, Book 1, pp. 122-123, … the good Druid went to seeke out some hearbs by the bank sides, which he knew were good to be applyed unto my wounds, and which would a little freshen and invigorate my spirits;”

   “I’ve been pegging away at mathematics till my head is in a muddle, and I’m going to freshen my wits by a brisk turn.”

7. To make fresh.

   “[...] Natal, the glorious green country on the coast, lush, forested, watered, warm in the bitterest winter, in the summer freshened by breezes off the sea or the high mountains that bounded it inland.”

8. To make fresh.

   “1915, Edward Sorenson, On the Wallaby, Sydney: The Catholic Press, Chapter 11, [The animals] were not valuable enough to be worth the trouble of saving until rain came to fill the holes and freshen the pastures.”

9. To make fresh.

   “Mrs. Meyrick’s house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the river, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to her daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the small double room where a lamp and two candles were burning.”

   “[...] from the earliest time that he could remember, there had lain pleasantly in the end of his nose the various scents of mint—used to freshen the water in the ewers—or of basil, camomile, fennel, hysop and lavender—which he had been taught to strew on the rushy floors [...]”

10. To make fresh.

    “It was after seven, she was freshening her lipstick and perking up her appearance [...]”

    “[...] I knew that their laughter was real and that their lives were cheerful comedies, interrupted only by costume changes and freshening of make-up.”

11. To make fresh.

    “I remember feeling disappointed [...] because the great sign of a trumpeter designed by Rooke, the Pre-Raphaelite artist, had been freshened by some inferior hand.”

    “In staging the school’s Christmas play the whole town helped or meddled: older men repaired the platform, assembled the crib; young ones fashioned new innkeepers and freshened the masks with paint.”

12. To give redness to (the face or cheeks of a person with light skin).

    “It was a breezy sunny day; the air freshened the girl's cheeks, and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets: […]”

    “The wind had freshened his warm complexion as it freshens the glow of a brand.”

13. To make less salty; to separate, as water, from saline ingredients.

    “to freshen water, fish, or flesh”

    “Let me remark, that the great exercise used by these volunteer adventurers; their quantity of vegetable food; their freshening their salt provision, by boiling it in water, and mixing it with flour; their beverage of whey; and their total abstinence from spirituous liquors—are the happy preservatives from the scurvy, which brought all the preceding adventurers, who perished, to their miserable end.”

14. To relieve, as a rope, by change of place where friction wears it; or to renew, as the material used to prevent chafing.

    “to freshen a hawse”

    “[...] when a ship is to lie with all winds that may blow, the best anchor and open hawse should be towards the worst wind that may blow, to raise the waves, and give the ship a pitching motion [...] and must leave no more of the smallest moorings within board, than just enough to freshen the hawse on occasion;”

15. To top up (a drink).

    “She dried her eyes and blew her nose and picked up her drink. ¶ Cass stared at her helplessly. “Let me freshen it for you,” she said, and took the glass into the kitchen.”

    ““Get in here and freshen my glass. You’ve got lousy manners for the son of a front-family, and just a^([sic]) hour since we’re engaged...””

16. To top up (primer) in a firearm.

    “Freshen the priming of your pistols—the mist of the falls is apt to dampen the brimstone—and stand firm for a close struggle, while I fire on their rush.”

    “She pushed her tomahawk and fighting knife into the back of her belt, opened her powder horn and freshened the priming in her rifle and pistols [...]”