trepidation
Syllables: tre·pi·da·tionUK/ˌtɹɛp.ɪˈdeɪ.ʃən/
trepidation noun: anxiety over the uncertain future or possible ill-occurrence.
Noun
trepidation (countable and uncountable, plural trepidations)
- Anxiety over the uncertain future or possible ill-occurrence.
- I decided, with considerable trepidation, to let him drive my car without me.
- She reached it soon after half-past two. She found its gloomy nineteenth-century façade, black with the smuts of ninety years, a little daunting, and mounted its broad steps in some trepidation. But she rang the bell hard and knocked firmly.1915, Edgar Jepson, “The Reluctant Duke”, in Happy Pollyooly: The Rich Little Poor Girl, Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 135
- Synonyms:
- agitation, apprehension, consternation, fear, hesitation, worry
- An involuntary trembling, sometimes an effect of paralysis, but usually caused by terror or fear.
- A libration of the starry sphere in the Ptolemaic system; a motion ascribed to the firmament, to account for certain small changes in the position of the ecliptic and of the stars.
trepidation meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
trepidation in Tamil
- அங்கும் இங்கும், அச்சம், நடுக்கம்
trepidation in Urdu
- کپکپاہٹ, لرز
trepidation in Malayalam
- ഭയകമ്പനം, അങ്കലാപ്പ്, അന്ധാളിപ്പ്, ഉദ്വേഗം
trepidation in Kannada
- ನಡುಕ, ಗಾಬರಿ, ಹೆದರಿಕೆ, ನಿಕ್ಕುವವಲ್ಲದಿಕೆ, ಆತಂಕ, ಕಳವಳ
Examples of trepidation in a sentence
- She opened the drawing-room door in trepidation.1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw, chapter VII, in A House is Built:
- When I went, I left from the station / With a haversack and some trepidation1990, Chris Lowe, Neil Tennant, “Being Boring”, performed by Pet Shop Boys:
Synonyms of trepidation
Forms of trepidation
| plural | trepidations |
|---|
Origin of trepidation
Borrowed from Latin trepidātiō, from trepidō (“be agitated”).
Questions about trepidation
- What does trepidation mean?
- Trepidation means anxiety over the uncertain future or possible ill-occurrence.
- What is trepidation in Tamil?
- Trepidation in Tamil is அங்கும் இங்கும், அச்சம், நடுக்கம். See Trepidation meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use trepidation in a sentence?
- She opened the drawing-room door in trepidation.
- What part of speech is trepidation?
- Trepidation is a noun.
- How do you pronounce trepidation?
- Trepidation is pronounced /ˌtɹɛp.ɪˈdeɪ.ʃən/ (UK).
- What is the plural of trepidation?
- The plural of trepidation is trepidations.
Words near trepidation in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: trepidation (page history and authors); trepidation (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); trepidation (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); trepidation (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); trepidation (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-trepidation.ogg, en-au-trepidation.ogg.
Cite this entry: “trepidation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trepidation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.