fresh

英文词源

fresh

fresh: [12] Fresh is of Germanic origin, but in its present form reached English via French. Its ultimate source was the prehistoric Germanic adjective *friskaz, which also produced German frisch, Dutch vers, Swedish färsk, and possibly English frisk [16]. It was borrowed into the common source of the Romance languages as *friscus, from which came French frais and Italian and Spanish fresco (the Italian form gave English fresco [16], painting done on ‘fresh’ – that is, still wet – plaster, and alfresco [18], literally ‘in the fresh air’).

English acquired fresh from the Old French predecessor of frais, freis. The colloquial sense ‘making presumptuous sexual advances’, first recorded in the USA in the mid 19th century, probably owes much to German frech ‘cheeky’.
=> alfresco, fresco, frisk

fresh (adj.1)

c. 1200, fresh, also fersh, "unsalted; pure; sweet; eager;" the modern form is a metathesis of Old English fersc, of water, "not salt, unsalted," itself transposed from Proto-Germanic *friskaz (cognates: Old Frisian fersk, Middle Dutch versch, Dutch vers, Old High German frisc, German frisch "fresh"). Probably cognate with Old Church Slavonic presinu "fresh," Lithuanian preskas "sweet."

Sense of "new, recent" is from c. 1300; that of "not stale or worn" is from early 14c.; of memories from mid-14c. The metathesis, and the expanded Middle English senses of "new," "pure," "eager" probably are by influence of (or from) Old French fres (fem. fresche; Modern French frais "fresh, cool"), which is from Proto-Germanic *frisko-, and thus related to the English word. The Germanic root also is the source of Italian and Spanish fresco. Related: Freshly. Fresh pursuit in law is pursuit of the wrong-doer while the crime is fresh.

fresh (adj.2)

"impudent, presumptuous," or as Century Dictionary puts it, "verdant and conceited," 1848, U.S. slang, probably from German frech "insolent, cheeky," from Old High German freh "covetous," related to Old English frec "greedy, bold" (see freak (n.2)).