Green’s Dictionary of Slang

fresher n.

also fresh, freshie
[SE freshman; one of the last survivors of the -er sfx2 , which once offered ‘Pragger Wagger’, the Prince of Wales, ‘wagger pagger bagger’, waste paper basket etc.]

1. (UK/US campus) a student in their first term at a university; also of high school.

[UK] ‘Vincent Eden’ in Bentley’s Misc. 316: He [...] was told that he could not have a fresher than the gentleman in the coffee-room. The luggage was accordingly huddled into the barrow, and the embryo collegian was stepping into the street. [Ibid.] 319: They generally put fresh gentlemen in the back buildings.
[UK]Oxford & Cambridge Undergraduate's Jrnl 13 199: Freshers, if there are many of them together generally contrive to light upon those who are of their own tastes and pursuits.
[UK]Cambridge Rev. 6 313: There has been plenty of cricket in the shape of the Freshers’ match.
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Mar. 7/3: [T]hey were met by the Freshmen of the college [...] Each ‘Freshy’ was armed with a slungshot composed of lampblack in a cheese cloth.
[US]W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 6: fresh or freshie n. Freshman.
[UK]Boy’s Own Paper 17 Nov. 110: Dressed in flannels, long trousers – they must be long to proclaim to the world that you are only a ‘Fresher’.
[US]E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 37: fresh, n. A freshman.
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 8 Dec. 6/4: [headline] girl freshies / [...] / get a hazing.
E.B. Morris Senior 12: Spencer [...] [T]here’s another stool — fall over that, fresh.
E.B. Morris Freshman in College Comedies 24: Jerome. All unknown to the freshies.
[US]A. Baer Picked for 1920 24 Nov. [synd. col.] The profs sent him back to the freshies with this sign on his skull: ‘Opened by Mistake’.
[US]Ottowa Campus 10 Oct. 2/3: Oh, to be a fresh again, I sure would study more.
[UK]Wodehouse Inimitable Jeeves 123: He was in his fourth year at Oxford when I was a fresher.
[US]H.W. Brecht Downfall 257: That’s what happens when an insignificant freshie has a little luck.
[US]J. Conroy World to Win 121: Look at that Goddamn fairy, Ralph Gibson [...] Look at the way he shakes it up. He’s tried to make every freshie on the campus.
[Aus]Benjamin & Pearl Limericks Down Under 15: A fresher who came up from Hall, / [...] / Up the garden was led / By a bibulous med.
[Ire]P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 22: Three or four freshers, total airheads, roysh.
[US]W.D. Myers Shooter 54: I was watching the freshies getting on a bus.

2. a new arrival among a group of soldiers.

[UK]B.J. Brookes diary 6 Nov. 🌐 Freshers are always so eager to hear tale of the Front.
[UK]‘Ex-Légionnaire 1384 Hell Hounds of France 89: Freshers had to learn [...] that a Légion N.C.O. must be saluted, whether in or out of barracks [...] Failure to comply meant a flogging.