apprehensive Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite quick to understand
    discerning.
    • a kind and apprehensive friend"- Nathaniel Hawthorne
  2. adjective satellite mentally upset over possible misfortune or danger etc
    worried.
    • apprehensive about her job
    • not used to a city and worried about small things
    • felt apprehensive about the consequences
  3. adjective satellite in fear or dread of possible evil or harm
    • apprehensive for one's life
    • apprehensive of danger

WordNet

Ap`pre*hen"sive adjective
Etymology
Cf. F. appréhensif. See Apprehend.
Definitions
  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. R.
    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. R.
    Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings, Mangle my apprehensive, tenderest parts. Milton.

Webster 1913