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Definition of Apprehensive
1. Adjective. Quick to understand. "A kind and apprehensive friend"
2. Adjective. Mentally upset over possible misfortune or danger etc. "Felt apprehensive about the consequences"
3. Adjective. In fear or dread of possible evil or harm. "Apprehensive of danger"
Definition of Apprehensive
1. a. Capable of apprehending, or quick to do so; apt; discerning.
Definition of Apprehensive
1. Adjective. Anticipating something with anxiety or fear. ¹
2. Adjective. Perceptive; quick to learn; intelligent; capable of grasping with the mind or intellect. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Apprehensive
1. [adj]
Medical Definition of Apprehensive
1. 1. Capable of apprehending, or quick to do so; apt; discerning. "It may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive . . . Friend, is listening to our talk." (Hawthorne) 2. Knowing; conscious; cognizant. "A man that has spent his younger years in vanity and folly, and is, by the grace of God, apprehensive of it." (Jer. Taylor) 3. Relating to the faculty of apprehension. "Judgment . . . Is implied in every apprehensive act." (Sir W. Hamilton) 4. Anticipative of something unfavorable' fearful of what may be coming; in dread of possible harm; in expectation of evil. "Not at all apprehensive of evils as a distance." (Tillotson) "Reformers . . . Apprehensive for their lives." (Gladstone) 5. Sensible; feeling; perceptive. "Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings, Mangle my apprehensive, tenderest parts." (Milton) Origin: Cf. F. Apprehensif. See Apprehend. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)
Lexicographical Neighbors of Apprehensive
Literary usage of Apprehensive
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage by Inc. Merriam-Webster (1994)
"Trust your dictionary. apprehensive When the object of concern is a person,
apprehensive takes for: Watching these contests, I could not help feeling ..."
2. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1887)
"... reigned in the Imperial court, were mutually apprehensive of alienating, and
perhaps exasperating, the minds of a powerful, though declining faction. ..."
3. Publications by Oxford Historical Society (1907)
"Neither do I remember to have known it so near, insomuch that we were very
apprehensive of mischief, but there was a very great Rain with it, ..."
4. The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill (1870)
"Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for those which they are
idly apprehensive of: while every restraint on the freedom of conduct of any ..."
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