fresh [OE] In Anglo-Saxon times, when meat was salted to last through the winter, fresh meant ‘not salt’. The sense of ‘newly made, not faded, or worn’ developed in the Middle Ages. Fresh meaning ‘cheeky’ or ‘impudent’ appeared in the 19th century, and may have been influenced by German frech ‘saucy’. A desire for new areas of activity may be expressed as wanting fresh fields and pastures new. The phrase is a misquotation from a poem by the 17th-century poet John Milton, ‘Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new’.