apprehensive

Anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.

Adjective

  1. Anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.
    • This convinc'd me that there was no going on Shore for us in the Night upon 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...
    • But Claggart's was no vulgar form of the passion. Nor, as directed toward Billy Budd, did it partake of that streak of apprehensive jealousy that marred Saul's visage perturbedly brooding on the comely young David....
    • Never before in his life had Dan Holland feared anything, but now he was apprehensive for the safety of this trim blond creature before him. - 1947 August, “Death Thumbs A Ride”, in Crime Does Not Pay, number 54, page...
  2. Perceptive; quick to learn; capable of understanding using one's intellect.
    • More fond of Miracles, than apprehensive of Truth. - 1670, John Milton, History of Britain:

Origin

From Latin apprehensīvus, from apprehensus, perfect passive participle of apprehendō (“to apprehend, understand, learn”) + -īvus (“-ive”).

Forms

more apprehensive most apprehensive

Derived

apprehensively apprehensiveness inapprehensive misapprehensive overapprehensive unapprehensive

Noun

  1. A mood indicating an undesired outcome.
    • In 16.66 the non-visual apprehensive is used with the third-person. - 2003, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, “16 - Mood and modality”, in A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia, Cambridge University Press, →DOI, →ISBN,...