apprehensive

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin apprehensīvus,^[2][3][4][5] formed from apprehēnsus, the past participle of Latin apprehendō (“to take hold of, grasp”), the source of apprehend, and the suffix -īvus.^[2][3][4] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English give it as from French appréhensif or the Medieval Latin word.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Relating to, or fitted for, grasping impressions of the senses or the mind: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, where the wits come from the rational and apprehensiue power.^[2][8] Etymonline and Dictionary.com also date the word to the late 14th century.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

In the early 17th century the word was used of people and minds that grasp things quickly, intelligent or sharp (in Burton in 1621, and in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the First Folio of 1623), and of being aware or conscious of something (1611).^[2][3] Etymonline explains the fearful sense through this notion of grasping with the mind,^[3] and Trench notes that people seize most readily on what a matter offers to fear, so that apprehend gained the sense "to regard with fear".^[10] The sense "fearful of what may be coming" appears with of in 1633, with a clause in 1710 and on its own in 1718, in Pope's Iliad, and the OED calls it now the usual sense.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) still gave "quick to understand" first and "fearful" second,^[11] but Trench (1859) observed that the word had come to mean nothing but fearful, quoting the older sense from Webster, Fuller and Beaumont and Fletcher.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1398 – relating to perception by the senses or the mind.^[2][8]
• 1611 – aware or conscious of something.^[2]
• 1621 – of the mind, intelligent, discerning, quick.^[2]
• 1623 – of people, quick to learn, perceptive.^[2]
• 1627 – ready to seize an offer or opportunity (obsolete by 1641).^[2]
• 1633 – fearful of something that may happen.^[2][3]
• 1692 – capable of being understood (obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Anxious or fearful that something bad may happen: The villagers were apprehensive about the rising river.^{[12][4][2][11]}
2. Quick to understand; perceptive or discerning.^[4][2][11]
3. (archaic) Aware or conscious of something.^[4][2]
4. (archaic) Relating to perception or the faculty of apprehension.^[4][2]

Word family

• apprehensively
• apprehensiveness
• inapprehensive
• overapprehensive
• unapprehensive

Related words

• apprehend
• apprehension
• comprehensive
• prehensile

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
11. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins