apprehensive

adjective ap·pre·hen·sive \ ˌa-pri-ˈhen(t)-siv \

Updated on: 15 May 2018

Definition of apprehensive

1 : viewing the future with anxiety or alarm : feeling or showing fear or apprehension about the future

… many adults who do not think twice about the risks of driving an automobile are apprehensive about flying.
—Henry Petroski

2 : capable of understanding or quick to do so : discerning

3 : having awareness or knowledge of something : cognizant

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apprehensively

adverb

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apprehensiveness

noun

See apprehensive defined for English-language learners

See apprehensive defined for kids

Examples of apprehensive in a Sentence

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
I'm fully apprehensive of the options, I assure you.

Recent Examples of apprehensive from the Web

These sweeteners are synthetically derived, and that makes many people apprehensive.

— molly kimball, NOLA.com, "Cutting back on sugar? A guide to sweetener choices," 8 May 2018
While consumers do not anticipate an economic downturn anytime soon, the long expansion has made consumers (and economists) somewhat apprehensive about future trends.

— josh mitchell, WSJ, "Americans’ Confidence Slips But Remains Historically High," 27 Apr. 2018
Labels point out that Cameron's subject, her 21-year-old niece, Julia Jackson, seems apprehensive on the eve of her wedding.

— steven litt, cleveland.com, "Cleveland Museum of Art spotlights recent additions to ever-growing permanent collection (photos)," 8 Apr. 2018
And players are apprehensive that biometric and performance data might be used against them—primarily during contract negotiations.

— ian mcmahan, WIRED, "The Tricky Ethics of the NFL's New Open Data Policy," 29 Mar. 2018
His parents were slightly apprehensive, but the sport was well-suited for their outdoorsy son.

— karen pilarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "With an eye toward the Olympics one day, this Brookfield boy, 12, made a luge track in his basement," 13 Mar. 2018
After a traumatic hospital experience with the birth of her first child, Rothenberger and her husband were apprehensive to have any more children.

— daniela sternitzky-di napoli, Houston Chronicle, "Photos of mom's 'intense' backyard waterbirth go viral," 26 Apr. 2018
Economists said Monday a new survey indicates Alaskans’ outlook for the economy is perking up amid higher oil prices, new oil discoveries and changing federal policies, though people remain apprehensive about the recession.

— alex demarban, Anchorage Daily News, "Surveys: Alaskans’ economic outlook is looking up," 24 Apr. 2018
The two skeleton athletes here from Jamaica and Ghana, two countries where there is very little natural ice, if any, were apprehensive, too, at first, neither of them knowing much about the sport before giving it a shot.

— New York Times, "Unlikely Skeleton Duo Share an Obscure Sport and a Crazy Dream," 15 Feb. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'apprehensive.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

How has the meaning of apprehensive changed over time?

When Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar “And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive,” he was not using the word apprehensive with the meaning which we so often encounter today (“viewing the future with anxiety or alarm”). The Bard was using the word’s older meaning of “capable of understanding or quick to do so” or “showing insight and understanding.” Apprehensive has shifted its meaning considerably in the seven hundred or so years it has been inhabiting our language. Its earliest meanings had to do with apprehension, to be sure, but it was apprehension meaning “the act of learning,” (a sense that is now obsolete) or “the act or faculty or grasping with the intellect.” The words apprehensive and apprehension both have roots in the Latin words prehendere meaning “to seize.”