How to use apprehensive in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective, noun

Apprehensive means anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant. Example: “Never before in his life had Dan Holland feared anything, but now he was apprehensive for the safety of this trim blond creature before him.”

Examples of apprehensive by meaning

adjectiveAnticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.

Never before in his life had Dan Holland feared anything, but now he was apprehensive for the safety of this trim blond creature before him.1947 August, “Death Thumbs A Ride”, in Crime Does Not Pay, number 54, page 45

nounA 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...

More sentences with apprehensive

We all felt a little apprehensive about climbing two peaks on the same day.2004, Richard F. Fleck, Breaking Through the Clouds, page 43. From the entry popcorn snow
More than a little apprehensive myself, I went out to the kitchen.1954, Blackwood's Magazine, volumes 275-276, page 340. From the entry cookie
The French government was always apprehensive to the German Government’s ripost to an air offensive.1952, Thomas Allnut Brassey, Brasseys Annual: The Armed Forces Year-book, page 306. From the entry ripost
Boots set off with it back to the castle, apprehensive of what his father would think of the shirtlet.2016, “Doll-in-the-Grass”, in The Witches' Almanac: Issue 36, Spring 2017 to 2018, page 139. From the entry shirtlet
The few adjectives that can be marked for dehortative or apprehensive mood are all physical property or human propensity adjectives.2004, R. M. W. Dixon, Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Adjective Classes: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, page 273. From the entry dehortative
Most tocophobes have not yet had a child and are apprehensive about the graduation ceremony from being a unigravida.[1986, David Grambs, Dimboxes, Epopts, and Other Quidams: Words to Describe Life’s Indescribable People, Workman Publishing, →ISBN, page 124. From the entry tokophobe
Many sincere white people in the South privately oppose segregation and discrimination, but they are apprehensive lest they be publicly condemned.1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., “Transformed Nonconformist”, in Strength to Love, New York: Pocket Books, published 1964, →OCLC, page 13. From the entry discrimination
Some retchers are extremely apprehensive as, in addition to their normal fears, they anticipate that they will retch or be sick and 'disgrace' themselves.1988, Jack Edgar Manning, General Dental Practice: A Handbook of Primary Dental Care, page 4-1. From the entry retcher
He was excessively careful, old-womanishly apprehensive.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 112. From the entry old-womanishly
A “joy car” waited by the low wooden platform with already one or two apprehensive passengers biting their nails in the front scats.1939, Loch,t.a., chapter V, in I Left England, page 50. From the entry joy car
Unfortunately, many patients (and some doctors) have "steroidphobia," which means that they are unduly apprehensive about using prednisone for short periods of time in unstable asthma.2002, Paul J. Hannaway, Asthma-- an Emerging Epidemic. From the entry steroidphobia
But a little post mortem first may provide information useful to other people who keep brontosauri or other large beasts and who are solicitous or apprehensive about their health.1977, Nuclear Power Costs: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives…. From the entry brontosauri
Frightened by the noises approaching them from the rear, and apprehensive of the human silence ahead, the five roe deer were halted, their heads high in nervous alertness.1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 84. From the entry roe deer

Meaning of apprehensive

adjective Anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.
adjective Perceptive; quick to learn; capable of understanding using one's intellect.
noun A mood indicating an undesired outcome.

Full definition of apprehensive

Questions about apprehensive in a sentence

How do you use apprehensive in a sentence?: Apprehensive is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Never before in his life had Dan Holland feared anything, but now he was apprehensive for the safety of this trim blond creature before him.”
What is a short sentence with apprehensive?: “He was excessively careful, old-womanishly apprehensive.”
What does apprehensive mean?: Apprehensive means anticipating something with anxiety, fear, or doubt; reluctant.

Adapted from Wiktionary: apprehensive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use apprehensive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/apprehensive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.