Noun: fresh
| Singular | fresh |
| Plural | freshes |
Sample Sentences
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They went on very well with their work until it was nigh done, when there came the second epistle to Noah's fresh, and away went their mill, shot, lock, and barrel. [1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, Nebraska, published 1987, page 21:]
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[…]And take his bottle from him. / When that's gone, / He shall drink naught but brine, for I'll not show him / Where the quick freshes are. [1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:]
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When they cross any great Water, or violent Fresh, or Torrent, they throw Tobacco, Puccoon, Peak, or some other valuable thing, that they happen to have about there, to intreat the Spirit presiding there, to grant them a safe passage. It is call'd a Fresh, when after very great Rains, or (as we suppose) after a great Thaw of the Snow and Ice lying upon the Mountains Page 43 to the North West, the Water descends, in such abundance into the Rivers, that they overflow the Banks which bound their Streams at other times. [1705, Robert Beverley, Jr., History and Present State of Virginia:]
Nouns inflected like fresh
penniless-bench,
wintergrass,
kitchen pass,
grey fox,
grey box,
trailer hitch,
paleness,
loaded march,
Tush Push,
horribleness,
slaughteress,
chapparvovirus,
greenwax,
royal flush,
crab cactus,
geostress,
syngas,
wintercress,
ichthys,
ichthus, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English fressh, from Old English fersċ (“fresh, pure, sweet”), from Proto-West Germanic *frisk (“fresh”), from Proto-Germanic *friskaz (“fresh”), from Proto-Indo-European *preysk- (“fresh”). The verb is from Middle English freshen (“to freshen”), from the adjective.
2. Cognate with Scots fresch (“fresh”), West Frisian farsk (“fresh”), Dutch vers (“fresh”), Walloon frexh (“fresh”), German frisch (“fresh”), French frais (“fresh”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk frisk (“fresh”), Swedish frisk (“well, fresh”), Icelandic ferskur (“fresh”), Lithuanian prėskas (“unflavoured, tasteless, fresh”), Russian пре́сный (présnyj, “sweet, fresh, unleavened, tasteless”). Doublet of fresco and frisk.
3. Slang sense possibly shortened form of “fresh out the pack”, 1980s routine by Grand Wizzard Theodore. See: Dutch Nouns '
vers', French Nouns '
frais', Icelandic Nouns '
ferskur'.