Definition of "freshen"
freshen
verb
third-person singular simple present freshens, present participle freshening, simple past and past participle freshened
(intransitive) To become fresh.
Quotations
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.
1874, Thomas Hardy, “Adventures by the Shore”, in Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], page 206
Quotations
To become not salty, to lose its salinity. (of water)
Quotations
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;
1785, John Rickman, Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage, to the Pacific Ocean, London: E. Newbery, Introduction, pp. xxx-xxxi
(intransitive, of wind) To become stronger.
Quotations
[...] 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;
1674, James Janeway, “Remarkable Sea Deliverances”, in Mr. James Janeway’s Legacy to His Friends, London: Dorman Newman, page 53
All day the breeze held in the same point, and rather freshened than died down; and towards afternoon, a swell began to set in from round the outer Hebrides.
1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “I Hear of the ‘Red Fox’”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, page 101
To refresh; to revive; to renew.
Quotations
[...] 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;
1657, John Davies (translator), Astrea by Honoré d'Urfé, London: H. Moseley et al., Volume 2, Part 3, Book 1, pp. 122-123
Quotations
[...] 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.
1973, Jan Morris, chapter 3, in Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 60
To remove or cover unpleasant qualities such as staleness, bad odour or taste (in air, breath, water, etc.).
Quotations
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.
1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XVIII, in Daniel Deronda, volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, book II (Meeting Streams), page 356
[...] 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 [...]
1958, T. H. White, chapter 20, in The Once and Future King, New York: Berkley, page 179
Nowadays, she’d be the kind of woman who’d carry one of those breath-freshening atomizers in her purse—gassing herself with the atomizer, all day long, just in case someone might be moved to spontaneously kiss her.
1989, John Irving, chapter 7, in A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: William Morrow, page 333
To touch up the paint on (something).
Quotations
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.
1922, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, chapter I, in The Trembling of the Veil, London: Privately printed for subscribers only by T[homas] Werner Laurie, Ltd., book I (Four Years 1887–1891), pages 3–4
(transitive) To make less salty; to separate, as water, from saline ingredients.
Quotations
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.
1784, Thomas Pennant, Arctic Zoology, London, Volume 1, Introduction, p. clxxxviii
[...] ordinarily a wizard looks after such small conveniences by way of spells, the very least and commonest kind of spells, and indeed it takes little more magic to freshen seawater and so save the bother of carrying fresh water.
1968, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 10, in A Wizard of Earthsea, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published 2012, page 196
(transitive, nautical) To relieve, as a rope, by change of place where friction wears it; or to renew, as the material used to prevent chafing.
Quotations
[...] 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;
1777, William Hutchinson, “On Mooring Ships”, in A Treatise on Practical Seamanship, Liverpool, page 73
(transitive, historical) To top up (primer) in a firearm.
Quotations
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.
1826, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter VII, in The Last of the Mohicans; a Narrative of 1757. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea— […], page 99