Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tipsy, slightly drunk.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 164: The company, who had not been idle with their glasses, had now got rather freshish.
1829		Marryat Life of Frank Mildmay II 74: Drinking was not among my vices. I could get ‘fresh,’ as we call it, when in good company and excited by wit and mirth; but I never went to the length of being drunk.
1837		Disraeli Venetia II 344: ‘Are you very drunk?’ ‘My dear fellow, I am as fresh as possible.’.
1839		Hull Packet 31 May 3/1: My friend, you were druink on your beat, and I was freshish.
1847		Punch XIII 213/2: Fresh is [...] the state of the convivial Fast Man who has been drinking too liberally of spirituous liquors.
1856		Mons. Merlin 18 Oct. 6/2: Should he [drink] to excess, he does not become, like ordinary mortals, intoxicated, but ‘fresh;’ he may advance to ‘boskiness,’ or get ‘tight screwed’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1868		Taunton Courier 19 Aug. 8/5: The first degree was that of sobriety [...] the fifth, when he was ‘fresh’.
1875		York Herald 23 Apr. 6/1: The defendant and the waggoner had been ‘fresh’.
1882		G.W. Peck Peck’s Sunshine 99: Whether the young Mr. Darling told the boys that Mr. Hoyt was ‘fresh’ or not, perhaps, will never be known.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 11/2: ‘The fresher of the two carried a bottle of gin under his arm, and advised the unfresh one to be careful about stepping over the plank, and naturally, having seen his companion aboard, returned ashore, grabbed his gin and his parcel, stepped out, and fell into the sea.’.
1885		M. Davitt Leaves from a Prison Diary I 176: He came home from work one Saturday evening ‘a little fresh,’ but not drunk.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 96: I thought I heard someone call me on the stairs, but I was a bit fresh.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 2 Sept. 7/5: And he and his ‘fresh’ English mates did up their ‘bally tin’.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Apr. 24/3: Two prominent M.L. racing-men set out to christen a new buggy lately, and soon got ‘fresh.’ [...] [W]hen told to harness-up later on, he costumed the wrong nag.
1913		Surrey Mirror 23 Dec. n.p.: He was variously described as being ‘freshy,’ ‘cherry merry’ and ‘juiced up’.
1920		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Feb. 18/3: A couple of the sundries got fresh and had a go-in at one end of the carriage.