apprehend
Americanverb (used with object)
-
apprehends,
present (3rd person singular)
-
apprehended,
past participle, past
-
apprehending
present participle
-
to take into custody; arrest by legal warrant or authority.
The police apprehended the burglars.
-
to grasp the meaning of; understand, especially intuitively; perceive.
-
to expect with anxiety, suspicion, or fear; anticipate.
apprehending violence.
verb (used without object)
-
apprehends,
present (3rd person singular)
-
apprehended,
past participle, past
-
apprehending
present participle
-
to understand.
-
to be apprehensive, suspicious, or fearful; fear.
verb
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(tr) to arrest and escort into custody; seize
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to perceive or grasp mentally; understand
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(tr) to await with fear or anxiety; dread
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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apprehendsimple
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apprehendssimple
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have apprehendedperfect
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has apprehendedperfect
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am apprehendingprogressive
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are apprehendingprogressive
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is apprehendingprogressive
-
have been apprehendingperfect progressive
-
has been apprehendingperfect progressive
Past
-
apprehendedsimple
-
had apprehendedperfect
-
was apprehendingprogressive
-
were apprehendingprogressive
-
had been apprehendingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of apprehend
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English apprehenden, from Latin apprehendere “to grasp,” from ap- ap- 1 + prehendere “to seize” (from pre-, prae- pre- + -hendere “to grasp”)
Explanation
To apprehend is to capture or arrest, as when the police try to apprehend criminals and bring them to justice. You also apprehend a concept when you understand it, grasping or capturing its meaning. The verb apprehend has remained much the same since the original Latin, both in form and meaning. It comes from apprehendere, "to grasp or seize." The word came to refer to learning — "grasping or seizing with the mind" — but then came to mean "seize in the name of the law" or "arrest" around the 1540s, a meaning that remains to this day. The word can also be used to suggest an anxious feeling about something about to happen.
Vocabulary lists containing apprehend
Romeo and Juliet
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"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift
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"Sorry, Wrong Number," Vocabulary from the play
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Another resident described the moment he said he saw police apprehend the suspects.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
"Security forces are operating in the Qalandia camp area in order to thwart terror and apprehend wanted individuals," a military official told AFP.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
Judge Wright said she would allow for more time to apprehend Muhamadi, with a view to sentencing him at a later date.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2026
In January, Yemen’s Interior Ministry re-upped a request to its Emirati counterpart to apprehend Al-Maqtari and his associates.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2026
“We must apprehend them before they leave this building.”
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
Porzak, a gifted photographer, apprehends the world visually, but to reach her mother as she slipped in and out of a coma, she used sound.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2022
The Border Patrol apprehends migrants who cross the border unlawfully.
From New York Times ● Aug. 18, 2020
The Border Patrol apprehends people entering the U.S. illegally, both directly at the U.S.-Mexico border and with its series of highway checkpoints miles from the border.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 23, 2019
He said he shows the picture to migrants he apprehends, to discourage them from trying again.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 10, 2018
Volkheimer switches off the light, and Werner apprehends something excruciating held at bay there in the darkness.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Then on Wednesday, The Times newspaper reported that the incident had been foiled after one of the five suspects tipped off the police before the group was apprehended.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
Police later said the teenage suspect apprehended was the Welsh-born son of Christian Rwandan immigrants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026
McGuire was apprehended as he was trying to access a red Ford Mustang car parked outside the building.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
The administration has forced the closure of some commercial-driving training schools and apprehended drivers who have commercial driver’s licenses but may be in the country illegally.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
We know that the other man was apprehended later.
From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Sir Mark said that "apprehending violent and dangerous criminals is a full contact and messy task which may appear shocking to observers with little experience of policing in the real world".
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2026
“If the U.S. government is unilaterally going into a sovereign country and apprehending somebody, you can understand the concern that sovereign entity might have,” Colombo told reporters outside the courthouse on Tuesday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
We must all reexamine our beliefs in a critical and dispassionate spirit to determine whether we are apprehending reality or clinging to mental fetishes.
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2025
By June, Bass faced a different emergency: waves of masked and heavily armed federal agents apprehending immigrants at car washes, Home Depots and elsewhere, sparking furious street protests.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2025
I took these techniques, these ways of seeing and feeling, and twisted them, bent them, adapted them, until they became my ways of apprehending the locked-in life of the Black Belt areas.
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
