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apprehensive
About Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page.

ap·pre·hen·sive

adjective \ˌa-pri-ˈhen(t)-siv\

: capable of understanding or quick to do so : discerning

: having awareness or knowledge of something : cognizant

: viewing the future with anxiety or alarm

— ap·pre·hen·sive·ly adverb

— ap·pre·hen·sive·ness noun

<I'm fully apprehensive of the options, I assure you.>
When the Crossroads Rhode Island social services agency switched to a 401(k) retirement plan from a pension last year, it added a feature that made some employees apprehensive. To ensure that as many employees as possible saved for retirement, the Providence nonprofit chose to automatically enroll all its workers into the 401(k) plan and deduct a minimum of 4 percent from their paychecks. —Andrew Caffrey, Boston Sunday Globe, 2 Oct. 2005
… Sargent, a shrewder character, was apprehensive about how the portrait would be viewed by the conventional crowds for whom a day out at the Salon was a social fixture in the Paris calendar. He was right. The public saw nothing lovely in this pallid, long- nosed woman with her prominent chin and superior smile. —Miranda Seymour, New York Times Book Review, 28 Sept. 2003
I arrived at my first Lamaze class the same way I showed up for my baby showers and ob-gyn appointments: a little excited, a little apprehensive, but mostly obediently, because it's what you're supposed to do when you're pregnant. —Paula Spencer, Parenting, April 1997
When it was a relatively new technology, many people eschewed air travel for fear of a crash. Even now, when aviation relies on a well-established technology, many adults who do not think twice about the risks of driving an automobile are apprehensive about flying. —Henry Petroski, To Engineer Is Human, 1992
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