Refreshing means making you feel cool and revived. A refreshing drink, refreshingly cold, a refreshing swim.
The physical sense is about cold and about the restoration of energy — a refreshing breeze, a refreshing shower. The figurative sense is much used and means welcome because different: a refreshing change, refreshingly honest, refreshing to hear somebody say so. Note refresh, refreshment; and that refreshments in the plural means the food and drink laid on at an event.
1adjectiverefreshingMaking you feel cool and revived.
“A refreshing breeze blew in from the sea.”
2adjectivewelcomeWelcome because different.
“It was refreshing to meet a politician who admitted his mistakes.”
refreshing is a quality of reviving.
Old French
refrescher — to refresh
Middle English
refreshen
English
refresh
English, today
refreshing
by surface analysis, refresh + -ing. refresh comes from Middle English refreshen, refreschen, refrisschen, from Old French refrescher (“to refresh”) (modern French rafraîchir), equivalent to re + fresh.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA