apprehensive

[ap-ri-hen-siv]

adjective

1. uneasy or fearful about something that might happen.

   apprehensive for the safety of the mountain climbers.

2. quick to learn or understand.

3. perceptive; discerning (usually followed byof ).

apprehensive

/ ˌæprɪˈhɛnsɪv /

adjective

1. fearful or anxious

Other Word Forms

• apprehensively adverb
• apprehensiveness noun
• nonapprehensive adjective
• overapprehensive adjective
• overapprehensively adverb
• overapprehensiveness noun
• pseudoapprehensive adjective
• pseudoapprehensively adverb
• unapprehensive adjective
• unapprehensively adverb
• unapprehensiveness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of apprehensive¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English word from Medieval Latin word apprehēnsīvus. See apprehensible, -ive

Example Sentences

Why include a plotline where a woman is apprehensive about believing another woman?

Read more on Salon

"I knew Nicky had put other lessons online but he was apprehensive about whether to share mine because you never know how people are going to take it," she says.

Read more on BBC

Monday’s report arrived as tariffs, weight-loss drugs and apprehensive low-income customers, who have been hit harder by the past few years of inflation, weigh on restaurant stocks.

Read more on MarketWatch

“I don’t know if I have the courage to stare into the spectacle of the great unknown,” Keaton wrote in 2014’s “Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty,” sounding as apprehensive as ever.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

I should have been nervous, maybe apprehensive, that he was here.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• afraid 
• concerned 
• doubtful 
• jittery 
• jumpy 
• suspicious 
• uncertain 
• uneasy 
• uptight