Word.ws English Dictionary

apprehensive

/ˌæpɹɪˈhɛnsɪv/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˌæpɹɪˈhensɪv/

apprehensive adjective: anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.

Adjective

apprehensive (comparative more apprehensive, superlative most apprehensive)

  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 as bad as to have fallen into the Hands of Lyons and Tygers; at leaſt we were...1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 28
    • 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. Claggart's envy struck deeper.1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter XI.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC, pages 256–257
  2. (obsolete) 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

Noun

apprehensive (uncountable)

  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, page 384

apprehensive meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Odia

apprehensive in Hindi

आशंकित

apprehensive in Urdu

سَرا سیمَہ, خائف

apprehensive in Malayalam

ആശങ്കയുളള, ഭയമുള്ള

apprehensive in Odia

ଶଙ୍କିତ
More languagesFewer languages
apprehensive in Arabic
مُتَوَتِّر mutawattir

Examples of apprehensive in a sentence

  • We all felt a little apprehensive about climbing two peaks on the same day.
  • More than a little apprehensive myself, I went out to the kitchen.
  • The French government was always apprehensive to the German Government’s ripost to an air offensive.

All 15 example sentences with apprehensive

Forms of apprehensive

comparativemore apprehensive
superlativemost apprehensive

Origin of apprehensive

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

Words formed from apprehensive

Questions about apprehensive

What does apprehensive mean?
Apprehensive means anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.
What is apprehensive in Hindi?
Apprehensive in Hindi is आशंकित. See Apprehensive meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is apprehensive?
Apprehensive can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce apprehensive?
Apprehensive is pronounced /ˌæpɹɪˈhɛnsɪv/ (UK).

Words near apprehensive in the dictionary

  1. apprehensibility
  2. apprehensible
  3. apprehensibly
  4. apprehension
  5. apprehensions
  6. apprehensive
  7. apprehensively
  8. apprehensiveness
  9. apprentice
  10. apprenticeage
  11. apprenticed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: apprehensive (page history and authors); apprehensive (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); apprehensive (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); apprehensive (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); apprehensive (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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