【New】 , 【novel】 , 【new-fashioned】 , 【newfangled】 , 【modern】 , 【modernistic】 , 【original】 , 【fresh】 can all mean having very recently come into existence or use or into a connection, a position, or a state (as of being recognized).
A thing is 【new】 that has never before the time of its advent been known, thought of, manufactured, or experienced, or that is just ready for use, sale, or circulation, or that has just been acquired.
A person is 【new】 if he has just been taken into a military, business, social, or other group <a 【new】 soldier> <a 【new】 stenographer> <three 【new】 members> or if he has received his first experience or if he has been renewed in spirit or in mind or in body.
A thing is 【novel】 which is not only 【new】 but so out of the ordinary course as to strike one as strange, unusual, or unfamiliar.
A thing is 【new-fashioned】 which is so different in form, shape, style, or character from what was previously known that it challenges curiosity or has only recently met general acceptance.
A thing is 【newfangled】 which strikes one as unnecessarily or as ingeniously 【novel】 ; often, however, the term differs little from 【new】 except in suggesting disparagement.
A person or thing is 【modern】 that belongs to the present time or is especially characteristic of it; the term often implies up-to-dateness and novelty or a contrast with what has been long accepted and still is the choice of the conservative: in this special sense 【modernistic】 may be preferred to 【modern】 , but more often 【modernistic】 carries a contemptuous suggestion of the ephemerally 【novel】 <when I refer to 【modern】 music, I do not mean necessarily 【modernistic】 music, much of which is a pale afterglow of the great and 【original】 modernism of yesteryear —Virgil Thomson > 【Modern】 , however, is always preferred to 【modernistic】 when contemporaneousness only is implied.
But 【modern】 is also applicable to things of more remote origin than any of the other terms; as opposed to ancient and medieval it usually implies reference to the centuries beginning with the full Renaissance up to the present.
Often, however, the dividing line between what is 【modern】 and what is too far distant in time to be called 【modern】 has to be supplied by the context.
A person or thing is 【original】 that is or produces something 【new】 or 【novel】 and, at the same time, the first of its kind.
A thing is 【fresh】 that is or seems so 【new】 that it has not had time to lose the signs of newness, such as liveliness, energy, brightness, or virginal quality.
