Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use freshen in a sentence

19 example sentences · verb

Freshen means to be refreshed. Example: “Women spend longer than men at freshening up before going out.”

Examples of freshen by meaning

verbTo become cool.

  • A little later, Harry sensed, by a freshening of the air, that they had reached the edge of the forest.2007 July 21, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 36, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter; 7), London...

verbTo become stronger.

  • wind force three, freshening from the southwest

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

  • Due to freshen the first of Jan.1919 January, in The Chenango County Farm Bureau News, volume 5, number 1, page 7
  • The cow freshened the week before Christmas.1938, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, chapter 26, in The Yearling, New York: Grosset and Dunlap, page 329
  • It was a miserably small two-week net for eight good Holsteins, but they were near the end of their lactation period; soon he’d have to arrange for freshening them again.1955, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Not This August, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Book 1, Chapter 4

verbTo refresh; to revive; to renew.

  • They went into the little room again at about a quarter to nine, freshened by a meal in the canteen and a cigarette.1952, Nevil Shute, chapter 6, in The Far Country, London: Heinemann
  • New hope freshened his heart.1956, Saul Bellow, chapter 5, in Seize the Day, New York: Crest, published 1965, page 89

verbTo remove or cover unpleasant qualities such as staleness, bad odour or taste (in air, breath, water, etc.).

  • 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
  • Tajirika found him trying to freshen the air in the chamber with perfume, but no amount of perfume could quite remove the stink in the offices of the Ruler.2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, chapter 17, in Wizard of the Crow, New York: Knopf Doubleday, published 2008, page 392

verbTo touch up the paint on (something).

  • 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.1997, Toni Morrison, Paradise, New York: Knopf, published 1998, page 185

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

  • ‘Might copper beech trees mark the route?’ suggested Adelaide, her dumpling countenance freshened by the excitement this thought induced.1986, William Trevor, “The News from Ireland”, in The News from Ireland and Other Stories, New York: Viking, page 15

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

  • to freshen water, fish, or flesh

More sentences with freshen

  • Women spend longer than men at freshening up before going out.From the entry freshen up
  • The next day the breeze freshened and the Ibis duly stood out to sea.2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin, published 2015, page 23. From the entry stand out
  • It's nice to see the zambonis are out freshening up the streets, so that the kids can ice-skate to school in northern Minnesota!2025 December 15, Seth Trobec, “Zamboni on the Streets!”, in Facebook, retrieved 19 Dec 2025. From the entry zamboni
  • With 17 minutes remaining, Townsend opted to freshen up his pack, bringing on props Oli Kebble and WP Nel and back-rower Gary Graham.2021 February 6, Graham Bean, “Scotland beat England at Twickenham for the first time in 38 years”, in The Scotsman. From the entry back-rower
  • Dorr had finished drill, and come up, as he did every day, to freshen himself with an hour's talk to this warm, blundering fellow.2000, S. Joshi, Civil War Memories, →ISBN. From the entry war-work
  • There a spring flows into a pool constructed by the kibbutzers; this is frequented by the people of Nazareth, who go there to freshen up and curse the Mongols.2003, Emile Habiby, translated by Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Trevor LeGassick, The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist, Northampton, MA…. From the entry kibbutzer
  • In the evening, do not forget that the lamps and gaslights are using up a goodly supply of oxygen also—so freshen things up a little, once in awhile.1904, Yogi Ramacharaka [pseudonym; William Walker Atkinson], “Fresh Air”, in Hatha Yoga: Or The Yogi Philosophy of Physical Well-being…. From the entry gaslight

Meaning of freshen

  1. verb To be refreshed.
  2. verb To become cool.
  3. verb To become not salty, to lose its salinity. (of water).

Full definition of freshen

Questions about freshen in a sentence

How do you use freshen in a sentence?
Freshen is used as a verb. For example: “Women spend longer than men at freshening up before going out.”
What is a short sentence with freshen?
“New hope freshened his heart.”
What does freshen mean?
Freshen means to be refreshed.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: freshen (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use freshen in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/freshen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.