APPREHENSIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Apprehensive

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/ˌæprɪhˈɛnsɪv/ /ˌæprihˈɛnsɪv/ Listen

adjective

Apprehensive adj.

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."

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."

Relating to the faculty of apprehension. "Judgment... is implied in every apprehensive act."

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." "Reformers... apprehensive for their lives."

Sensible; feeling; perceptive. (R.) "Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings, Mangle my apprehensive, tenderest parts."

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Etymology of 'Apprehensive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Apprehensive" Quotes from Famous Books

... of literary labour." She was conscious of a premonitory, apprehensive chill that travelled from the roots of her hair down her spine, and apparently made its exit at the heels of her Louis Quinze shoes. "So the 'Social Jottings' column will not appear in the ...

— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... conspiracy on the part of objects animate and inanimate to make him—well, suspicious. And Uncle Tobe was not given to nervousness, which made it worse. He was ashamed of himself that he should be in such state. Glancing about him in a furtive, almost in an apprehensive way, he crossed the front room to the middle room, which was his bed chamber, the kitchen being the room at the rear. In the middle room he lit a coal-oil lamp which stood upon a small centre table. Alongside the ...

— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... returned to the sitting-room, where the old man had seated himself in the rocking-chair, and was taking a mental inventory of the goods and chattels with a momentary keenness in his look that no way reassured Hitty's apprehensive heart. ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... numerous were the cautions I received, and the precautions I was recommended to take. Among those present, was a friend of mine named Thomson, who was rather given to be cynical in his remarks, and was besides addicted to the study of phrenology. He declared that for his part he was not so apprehensive concerning me on account of the pikes of the Repealers as of the darts ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... conscious of an irritated sense of injury, which Gillian's rather apprehensive little comments on the absence of further news concerning young Raynham scarcely tended ...

— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

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