APPREHENSION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does apprehension mean? 

• APPREHENSION (noun)
  The noun APPREHENSION has 4 senses:

1. fearful expectation or anticipation

2. the cognitive condition of someone who understands

3. painful expectation

4. the act of apprehending (especially apprehending a criminal)

  Familiarity information: APPREHENSION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• APPREHENSION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fearful expectation or anticipation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

apprehension; apprehensiveness; dread

Context example:

the student looked around the examination room with apprehension

Hypernyms ("apprehension" is a kind of...):

fear; fearfulness; fright (an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "apprehension"):

trepidation (a feeling of alarm or dread)

boding; foreboding; premonition; presentiment (a feeling of evil to come)

suspense (apprehension about what is going to happen)

gloom; gloominess; somberness; sombreness (a feeling of melancholy apprehension)

chill; pall (a sudden numbing dread)

Derivation:

apprehend (anticipate with dread or anxiety)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The cognitive condition of someone who understands

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

apprehension; discernment; savvy; understanding

Context example:

he has virtually no understanding of social cause and effect

Hypernyms ("apprehension" is a kind of...):

knowing (a clear and certain mental apprehension)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "apprehension"):

comprehension (an ability to understand the meaning or importance of something (or the knowledge acquired as a result))

self-knowledge (an understanding of yourself and your goals and abilities)

smattering (a slight or superficial understanding of a subject)

appreciation; grasp; hold (understanding of the nature or meaning or quality or magnitude of something)

grasping (understanding with difficulty)

hindsight (understanding the nature of an event after it has happened)

brainstorm; brainwave; insight (the clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation)

realisation; realization; recognition (coming to understand something clearly and distinctly)

Derivation:

apprehend (get the meaning of something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Painful expectation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

apprehension; misgiving

Hypernyms ("apprehension" is a kind of...):

expectation; outlook; prospect (belief about (or mental picture of) the future)

Derivation:

apprehend (anticipate with dread or anxiety)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The act of apprehending (especially apprehending a criminal)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

apprehension; arrest; catch; collar; pinch; taking into custody

Context example:

the policeman on the beat got credit for the collar

Hypernyms ("apprehension" is a kind of...):

capture; gaining control; seizure (the act of forcibly dispossessing an owner of property)

Derivation:

apprehend (take into custody)

 Context examples 

These thoughts, and a hundred other such thoughts, turned me burning hot, and made me giddy with apprehension and dismay.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The younger man's excitement and apprehension for White Fang was growing.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

His apprehension was so clear, and his judgment so exact, that he made very wise reflections and observations upon all I said.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

'The window! For heaven's sake shut that window!' roared the Professor from the platform, dancing and wringing his hands in an agony of apprehension.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Panic attacks begin with intense apprehension, fear or terror and, often, a feeling of impending doom.

(Panic Disorder, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Catherine, recollecting herself, grew ashamed of her eagerness, and began earnestly to assure him that her attention had been fixed without the smallest apprehension of really meeting with what he related.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The Kellynch property was good, but not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required in its possessor.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

It was at Circle City, ere the year was out, that Pete’s apprehensions were realized.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)