APPREHENSION

n.

6 definitions — Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


1.
n.

The act of seizing or taking hold of; seizure; as, the hand is an organ of apprehension. Sir T. Browne.

2.
n.

The act of seizing or taking by legal process; arrest; as, the felon, after his apprehension, escaped.

3.
n.

The act of grasping with the intellect; the contemplation of things, without affirming, denying, or passing any judgment; intellection; perception. Simple apprehension denotes no more than the soul's naked intellection of an object. Glanvill.

4.
n.

Opinion; conception; sentiment; idea.

5.
n.

The faculty by which ideas are conceived; understanding; as, a man of dull apprehension.

6.
n.

Anticipation, mostly of things unfavorable; distrust or fear at the prospect of future evil. After the death of his nephew Caligula, Claudius was in no small apprehension for his own life. Addison.