Dictionary Definition
apprehensive adj
1 quick to understand; "a kind and apprehensive
friend"- Nathaniel Hawthorne [syn: discerning]
2 mentally upset over possible misfortune or
danger etc; worried; "anxious parents"; "anxious about her job";
"not used to a city and anxious about small things"; "felt
apprehensive about the consequences" [syn: anxious]
3 in fear or dread of possible evil or harm;
"apprehensive for one's life"; "apprehensive of danger"
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Adjective
- Anticipating something with anxiety or fear.
- 1719: Daniel
Defoe, Robinson
Crusoe
- ''this convinced me that there was no going on shore for us in the night on that coast, and how to venture on shore in the day was another question too; for to have fallen into the hands of any of the savages had been as bad as to have fallen into the hands of the lions and tigers; at least we were equally apprehensive of the danger of it.''
- 1719: Daniel
Defoe, Robinson
Crusoe
Translations
- Finnish: levoton, huolestunut
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
afraid,
agitated, alive, all nerves, all-knowing,
all-overish, anxious,
anxioused up, apperceptive, appercipient, apprehending, awake, aware, bothered, cognizant, comprehending, concerned, conscious, disquieted, disturbed, edgy, excitable, fearful, foreboding, frightened, high-strung, in a
pucker, in a stew, in suspense, insightful, intelligent, irritable, keyed-up, knowing, knowledgeable, mindful, misgiving, nerves on edge,
nervous, nervy, omniscient, on edge, on
tenterhooks, on tiptoe, overanxious, overapprehensive,
overstrung, panicky, perceptive, percipient, perspicacious, perturbed, prehensile, qualmish, qualmy, quivering, sagacious, sensible, sentient, shrewd, solicitous, strained, suspenseful, taut, tense, troubled, understanding, uneasy, ware, wise, with bated breath, with
muscles tense, witting,
zealous