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Apprehension   Listen
noun
Apprehension  n.  
1.
The act of seizing or taking hold of; seizure; as, the hand is an organ of apprehension.
2.
The act of seizing or taking by legal process; arrest; as, the felon, after his apprehension, escaped.
3.
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."
4.
Opinion; conception; sentiment; idea. Note: In this sense, the word often denotes a belief, founded on sufficient evidence to give preponderation to the mind, but insufficient to induce certainty; as, in our apprehension, the facts prove the issue. "To false, and to be thought false, is all one in respect of men, who act not according to truth, but apprehension."
5.
The faculty by which ideas are conceived; understanding; as, a man of dull apprehension.
6.
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."
Synonyms: Apprehension, Alarm. Apprehension springs from a sense of danger when somewhat remote, but approaching; alarm arises from danger when announced as near at hand. Apprehension is calmer and more permanent; alarm is more agitating and transient.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Apprehension" Quotes from Famous Books



... been frequently observed, however, that there is much reluctance to apply to the New Testament the methods and canons of criticism that are applied to the Old. It will be so in the present case, through apprehension of somehow detracting from the distinctive glory of Christ. That fear will not disturb one who sees that glory not in his "mighty works," the like of which were wrought by the prophets, but in the spiritual majesty of his personality, the divineness of his message to ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... Trennahan's departure and paid calls during the afternoon. The small details diverted her, and she found herself able to make conversation, despite the sluggish current of misery beneath. She had told her mother of her determination not to marry Trennahan; and although Mrs. Yorba had paced the room in apprehension of her husband's wrath, she was secretly pleased. A daughter, particularly one that gave no trouble, was companionable and useful, and she saw no reason why she should be asked to give her to any man for years to come. Although meagre, she was not heartless, and was much relieved that ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... the very name "Spy" excites a shudder of apprehension; we Spies, in fact, get quite used to being shuddered at. None of us Spies mind it at all. Whenever I enter a hotel and register myself as a Spy I am quite accustomed to see a thrill of fear run round the clerks, ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... secrecy as possible and was undertaken with the determination to use all our divisions in forcing a decision. We expected to draw the best German divisions to our front and to consume them while the enemy was held under grave apprehension lest our attack should break his line, which it was our firm ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... was not usually quick of apprehension, he was not long here in guessing what the situation meant: it was clear enough that Donogan, being a friend of Joe Atlee, had been harboured here as a safe refuge. Of all places in the capital, none were so secure from the visits of the police as the college; indeed, it would have been ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... of herself arraigned before a judge, with that man beside her, rose before her imagination, and she became terrified. That slim, pale-faced girl, her husband's child, stood between her and her own honour, her own safety. Once the girl was removed, she would have no further fear, no apprehension, no hideous forebodings concerning the imminent future. She saw it all as she walked along that moss-grown forest-road, her eyes fixed straight before her. The tempter at her side had urged her to commit a dastardly, an unpardonable crime. In that man's hands she was, alas! ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... three-quarters of a mile off, there was a sudden rambling like a distant thunder-clap; the sands seemed to wave up and down as a shaken carpet, and we both staggered forwards. Others described the movement as rising and falling like the waters of a lagoon. I looked with apprehension at the sea; but the direction of the shock was apparently from west-north-west; and the line was too oblique to produce one of those awful earthquake-waves, seventy feet high, which have swept tall ships over the roofs of cities. We ran as fast as we could to the town, where everything ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... 63 and 64. We must remember that Ga@nges'a discarded the definition of perception as given in the Nyaya sutra which we have discussed above, and held that perception should be defined as that cognition which has the special class-character of direct apprehension. He thinks that the old definition of perception as the cognition generated by sense-contact involves a vicious circle (Tattvacintama@ni, pp. 538-546). Sense-contact is still regarded by him as the cause of perception, but it should not be included ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... apprehension deepened whimsically, though it denoted no actual apprehension whatever, and cleared away from his face altogether when he smiled; he became surprisingly winning and persuasive when he smiled. He smiled now, after a moment, at this question of his old friend. "She sees ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... However, to remove the apprehension that the soul may be dispersed by a wind, as it were, Socrates proceeds, in his third argument,[18] to examine that doubt more thoroughly. What, then, is meant by being dispersed but being dissolved into its parts? In order, therefore, to a thing being capable of dispersion ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... be in any apprehension or grief on my account. Were I to be beaten down by the world and its inheritors, I should have succumbed to many things years ago. You must not mistake my not bullying for dejection; nor imagine that because I feel, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... months she had brooded over every sign which seemed to foretell its approach; the egoism of the unconscious had made it plain to her that the world must suffer in a state of things which so grievously affected herself. Maternal solicitude kept her restlessly swaying between apprehension for her children and injury in the thought of their estrangement from her. And now at length a bitter shame added itself to her torments. She was shamed in her pride as a mother, shamed before the girl for whom she nourished a deep affection. ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... to hear of a cruel massacre committed by the Dutch upon them in Batavia. On one occasion, many thousands had collected; and some of them having been guilty of murders and robberies, a considerable apprehension was excited against the whole body. The Council, therefore, determined that every Chinese who could not prove that he was obtaining an honest livelihood, should be transported to Ceylon, to be employed as a slave in the service of ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... 1, 1860.—"Out of weakness were made strong." This is the verse which has been given me as a motto for the year. May it be fulfilled in my experience! But should it not be so to my apprehension, may I be able to say, "Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... was shown, for instance, by the following sentence on seeing milk spilt upon the floor: "Mime atta teppa papa oi," which was equivalent to "Milch fort (auf den) Teppich, Papa (sagte) pfui!" But it is interesting that at this age words were learnt with an erroneous apprehension of their meaning; this was particularly the case with pronouns—"dein Bett," for example, being supposed to mean "das grosse Bett." All words which were spontaneously acquired seemed to be instances of onomatopoeia. Adverbs were first used in the twenty-seventh month, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... evening seemed endless. A short letter from her father, which informed her that he had not expected too much of himself, and was in good health, she cast aside after reading. During the night the feeling of unhappiness and apprehension increased. But the next morning the sun shone brightly into her windows, and after mass a messenger from the Golden Cross announced that Duke Maurice of Saxony had arrived, and in the afternoon his Majesty wished to see her and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Elevated above all apprehension by the indignant pride which this cold and haughty questioning aroused, Lucy changed the music of the overture for a touching air, and, sang, with a rich, full voice, a single stanza of an ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... with us. By dint of wedging and hammering we succeeded in binding the wheel as fast as ever; but it was near night before we had finished the job. When we had got it upon the axle again, and were ready for the road, we saw, with some apprehension, that the sun was setting. We knew we could not travel by night, not knowing what road to take; and, as we were close to water, we resolved to stay where we ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... historiographers bind together the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up for immortality in the temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, ballad-stories, and traditions must be excluded from such original history; they are but dim and hazy forms of historical apprehension, and therefore belong to nations whose intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary, we have to do with people fully conscious of what they were and what they were about. The domain of reality—actually seen, or capable of being so-affords a very ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... more "overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and touched by God,"[27] he was moved to write down for his own use what he had seen. "It was," he says, "powerfully borne in upon my mind to write down these things for a memorial, however difficult they might be of apprehension to my outer self [intellect] and of expression through my pen. I felt compelled to begin at once, like a child going to school, to work upon this very great Mystery. Inwardly [in spirit] I saw it all well enough, as in ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... things that had gone down as the vessel fell over. The starboard second gun, from forward, had capsized, and come down directly over the forward hatch, and I caught a glimpse of a man struggling to get past it. Apprehension of this gun had induced me to drag myself forward of the mast, where I received the ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... against the political conduct of France and Spain, relative to the war with England, in favour of the American Independence? The Comtesse Diane! Not for the love of that rising nation, or for the sacred cause of liberty; but from a taste for notoriety, a spirit of envy and jealousy, an apprehension lest the personal charms of the Queen might rob her of a part of those affections, which she herself exclusively hoped to alienate from that abortion, the Comtesse d'Artois, in whose service she ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... had begun to beat very hard. "Is it?" said she in a tone of apprehension. "Do they profess ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... find—even with her circumvented lover! He would have his sport with her.... But though he promised this to himself with feline relish, apprehension and chagrin ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... beloved Brethren, especially you who have been set to the work of the ministry, I can say from my heart that I have but little apprehension that you are led on in your work by any other than a right motive. I do believe, from all that I know of you personally, as well as by reputation, that each one of you, with perhaps a somewhat varied perception of their exalted meaning and power, can adopt Paul's words: 'The love ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... flames, the constant explosions of dynamite, the loud vicious crackling of wood, the rending and splitting of masonry, the hoarse impact of walls as they met the earth, was the scene's wild orchestral accompaniment and, despite underlying apprehension and horror, gave Gora one of the few pleasurable sensations of ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... of man, of his immemorial injustice; but it remained abstract, platonic; she didn't detest him in consequence. What was the use of her having that sharp, inspired vision of the history of the sex (it was, as she had said herself, exactly like Joan of Arc's absolutely supernatural apprehension of the state of France) if she wasn't going to carry it out, if she was going to behave as the ordinary pusillanimous, conventional young lady? It was all very well for her to have said that first day ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... primarily as Grillparzer the poet; and in spite of loyalty to the monarchy, he was entirely out of sympathy with the antediluvian administration of Metternich and his successors. Little things, magnified by pusillanimous apprehension, stood in his way. In 1819 he expressed in a poem The Ruins of Campo Vaccino esthetic abhorrence of the cross most inappropriately placed over the portal of the Coliseum in Rome, and was thereafter never free of the suspicion of heresy. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... is anything—anything at all—you know what it might mean. You've got to be in the best mental and physical condition of your life tonight. You know better than any man here what that means to our success. I think there is something more than just natural apprehension wrong with ...
— Breakaway • Stanley Gimble

... in a subdued and reverent voice, agreeing with all the old banalities she uttered, all the preposterous opinions she propounded, all the commands she laid upon me, I gazed beyond her at the cat, and the creature was haggard with apprehension. ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... says, that the Bishops, in apprehension that James might follow his uncle's example, in casting down the Abbeys, "budded (bribed) the King to bide at home, and gave him three thousand pounds by year to sustain his house, off their benefices." At a later date, the Clergy, we ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... days before. The same jests and merry laughter filled the air, but somehow it all seemed out of tune. The sense of cold, lonely fear that had taken possession of her killed all capacity for merriment; the apprehension and solicitude of which her heart was full made the gay chattering and squeaking of the crowd sound harsh and unfeeling. The bright colors affronted her dejection; she did not want to see them. She lay back in the carriage, ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... a jest, and he'll beg to trust thee for a suit; nay, he will contribute to his own destruction, and give thee occasions to make one. He has been my artificer these three years; and, all the while, I have lived upon his favourable apprehension. Boy, conduct him up. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... Bull and his forces upon the Canadian frontier has allayed apprehension, although bodies of British Indians still cross the border in quest of sustenance. Upon this subject a correspondence has been opened which promises an adequate understanding. Our troops have orders to avoid meanwhile ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur

... treaty, one has the impression that more than two centuries ago the Austrian Emperor had already a sort of apprehension that later on another Emperor would interfere in the matter ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... God not hesitate to marry the children of the devil? Can these walk together, in domestic union and harmony? Can saint and sinner be of one mind, one spirit, one life, one hope, one interest? Can the children of the light and the children of darkness, opposite in character and in their apprehension of things, become flesh of each other's flesh, and by the force of their blended light and darkness shed, around their home-fireside the cheerfulness of a mutual love, of a common life and hope, and ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... then these resolutions wax faint, and I again find myself buying fresh animals, entering into fresh speculations, and just as deeply engaged as ever. It is the force of habit, a still unconquered propensity to the sport, and a nervous apprehension that if I do give it up, I may find no ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... intense bitterness of these people, when I remember what was done within living men's memory to the good elector Hans Frederic of Saxony for exactly the same reasons, to wit, hatred of our religion, and determination to establish Imperial authority, I have great apprehension. I believe that the Roman League will use the present occasion to carry out her great design; holding France incapable of opposition to her, Germany in too great division, and imagining to themselves that neither the King of Great Britain nor these States are willing or able to offer effectual ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... June 17, '98. DEAR JOE,—You are living your war-days over again in Dave, and it must be a strong pleasure, mixed with a sauce of apprehension—enough to make it just schmeck, as the Germans say. Dave will come out with two or three stars on his shoulder-straps if the war holds, and then we shall all be glad ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... cited to appear before the Balia, which, much against the wishes of his friends, he did. "Many," says Machiavelli, "would have him banished many executed, and many were silent, either out of compassion for him or apprehension of other people, so that nothing was concluded." Cosimo, however, was in the meantime a prisoner in the Palazzo Vecchio in the Alberghettino tower[96] in the custody of Federigo Malavolti. He could hear all ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... savage of the atrocities were reported,—a month devoted to a diligent search for the truth,—I could run down only two instances where the facts were proved, and where taken all in all and looked at from both sides they constituted an atrocity. I lived in an atmosphere of popular apprehension frequently amounting to terror. A friend of mine saw children throw up their hands in terror and fall down on their knees before a squad of German Uhlans who suddenly dashed into a village near Vilvorde. The ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... sober, respectable life at Springdale, of the good old staple families, with their steady ways,—of the girls in his neighborhood with their reading societies, their sewing-circles for the poor, their book-clubs and art-unions for practice in various accomplishments,—he thought, with apprehension, that there appeared not a spark of interest in his charmer's mind for any thing in this direction. She never had read any thing,—knew nothing on all those subjects about which the women and young girls in his circle were interested; while, in Springdale, there were none ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... if a prince could arise who could win the confidence of the people, the barons would have but little power left. Thus his care was so to bring up the Prince Renatus that he should understand how hard a task was before him; but the boy, though quick of apprehension, was fond of pleasure and amusement, and soon wearied of grave instructions; so the Duke did not persist overmuch, but strove to make the little Prince love him and confide in him, hoping that, when the day of trial came, he might be apt to ask advice rather than act hastily and perhaps foolishly; ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... followed us. And word being passed by his servants, as we supposed, that one of us was the murderer of Father Antoine, the rumour spread through the crowd like wildfire, and in a few moments we found ourselves attended by a troop of CANAILLE who, hanging on our skirts, caused Simon Fleix no little apprehension. Notwithstanding the contempt which M. d'Agen, whose bearing throughout was admirable, expressed for them, we might have found it necessary to turn and teach them a lesson had we not reached M. de Rambouillet's in the nick of time; where we found the door surrounded by half a dozen armed ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... to whom the petition is addressed. Thus it is that prayer throws light on the idea of God. From the prayers offered we can infer the nature of the idea. The confusion of admissible and inadmissible petitions points to confused apprehension of the idea of God. It is not merely imperfect apprehension but confused apprehension. In polytheism the confusion betrays itself, because it leads to collision with the principles of morality: of the gods who make war upon one ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... hunters dared to approach the circumference of the circular hole through which Pouchskin had sunk. They might have broken through themselves, and then all three would have been in the same fix. Of course, under this apprehension, they dared not go near enough to pull him out with their hands—even had they been able to reach down ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... bandages, trotted back to the settee, and with ghastly minuteness—the result of having been present at an accident, and studious readings of Dr Chartley's books—he proceeded to set a serious compound fracture, assuring himself that he bore it like a man, and that he need not be under the least apprehension, for in such a healthy subject the joint would knit together before long, and he would ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... of his own four walls and under the brooding solace of an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his former humor. But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled him with much wonder and some apprehension. He was too much a man of experience to deny questions when they were put to ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... animals, I again entered the maze of dunes and struck due east, full of forebodings as to my own possible fate, and of sorrow for that of poor Inyati. For hours I stumbled through the bewildering mass of broken and barren dunes, finding no trace of vegetation, and full of apprehension lest the wind should rise before I reached the pan; in which case I was doomed. At long length, and when the afternoon was well advanced, a flat dark space showed between two dunes some distance ahead, and an hour later I stood upon the pan. No salt pan this time, but a flat, circular floor ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... were able to give parties, to laugh and jest as if they had suffered no loss at all; and the thought of this cleared his way a little. If the worst came to the worst—and that desperate step of which he had spoken seemed his only refuge—he could take it with less apprehension. Pain to those he loved was inevitable, but it would not last very long; and his death would trouble them far ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... moment, from the stairway, came the sound of descending steps. Jack and Mary appeared undisturbed. Mr. Pyecroft became taut, though no one could have observed a change, Mrs. De Peyster quivered with yet deeper apprehension. Would the trials and tribulations and Pharaonic plagues ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... house. His road lay by the river shore, which was dreary enough at the fall of the year and in the evening hour: but the child was fearless, and saw the deepening shades sink into night without experiencing anything like apprehension. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... earth, but it was quite another to make the actual attempt. Still, they were not going to give up the project. The professor had confidence in his ship and believed it could safely make the trip. Still it was with no little apprehension that Mr. Henderson watched the nearer approach of the craft to that ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... quite yet. He hates to write." Her accent was sharp with anxiety as she added, "But of course he sends the—board-money for me—he would remember that?" Evidently she recalled the Senora Vigil's questions and doubts on this subject, for there was such intensity of apprehension in her look that Jane ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... is because he is Colbert's uncle, and was objected to, that he was inclined for such handsome treatment. As for me, I am beside myself when I think of such infamy. . . . You must know that M. Colbert is in such a rage that there is apprehension of some atrocity and injustice which will drive us all to despair. If it were not for that, my poor dear sir, in the position in which we now are, we might hope to see our friend, although very unfortunate, at any rate with his life safe, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... ill time to be sick in; for if any one complained, it was immediately said he had the plague; and though I had, indeed, no symptoms of that distemper, yet, being very ill both in my head and in my stomach, I was not without apprehension that I really was infected. But in about three days I grew better. The third night I rested well, sweated a little, and was much refreshed. The apprehensions of its being the infection went also quite away with my illness, and I went ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe

... his own; but his fears for his own safety being greater than his apprehensions for Winter and his master, he determined to make a discovery to one of his relations. This step was followed by their apprehension. ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... of the wheels the heavy train came to a stop, and at the same moment the four chums, listening with considerable apprehension, caught the sound of many loud and excited voices ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... ATTENTION.—The more fireproof the building, and the more stable the other conditions, the greater the efficiency of the inmate. Burglar-proof buildings not only actually induce better sleep, in that possible intrusions are eliminated, but give a state of mental peace by the removal of apprehension. So also, a "germ proof" house is not only really more healthful for an inmate, but eliminates worry over possible danger of ill health. The mental health of the worker not only controls, in a measure, his physical health, but also his desire to work. Having no distractions, ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth

... particle of jealousy or apprehension, and Graydon felt himself shouldered out of the way by a courtesy to which he could take no exception. He saw that only Miss Wildmere herself could check his rival's resolute and easy assurance. This he now felt sure she would ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... the fort; and, once there, fairly nestled under grandmam's wing. He well knew from pet-boy experience he could spin out his visit until it should please him to remount Shank's mare and trot back home of his own free will. His mind thus eased from the apprehension of pursuit, there was nothing to hinder him now, even while moving so swiftly along, from feasting his eyes on his beautiful moccasins—so red, so light, so fleet—so ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... Sam Warden in the yard, or, with evidently humorous intent, groaning at Mamie over Eugene's health; but it had not escaped Ariel that he was, on his part, watchful of herself, and upon his guard with a wariness in which she was sometimes surprised to believe that she saw an almost haggard apprehension. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... their efforts in this endeavor is evident. It found decided expression in the resolutions announced in 1876 by the national conventions of the leading political parties of the country. There was a widespread apprehension that the momentous results in our progress as a nation marked by the recent amendments to the Constitution were in imminent jeopardy; that the good understanding which prompted their adoption, in the interest of a loyal devotion to the general welfare, might prove ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... time the fisherman appeared to study the face on the photograph until he had it indelibly implanted in his memory, as if by some system such as that of the immortal Bertillon and his clever "portrait parle," or spoken picture, for scientific identification and apprehension. It was not a pleasant face and there were features that were ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... and other instruments of death. And he would be an officer, with all kinds of strange and vulgar men under him, men like Chipmunk, for instance, whom he would never understand. He was almost physically sick with apprehension. He realized that he had never commanded a man in his life. He had been mortally afraid of Briggins, his late chauffeur. He had heard that men at the front lived on some solid horror called bully-beef dug out of tins, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... hundred fresh horses were not worth the risk he ran. If he could have seized our supplies at Monocacy Station, and burnt the bridge there, he would have inflicted a serious loss upon the army. The nature of his raid seemed well understood, and there was no apprehension then of the enemy's holding the railroad; for the train from Baltimore had passed over the restored rails a few hours after the retreating troopers. At every important point we found soldiers, and near Frederick we were glad to hear that seven of the sick troopers, used up by their hard ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... on that memorable night. From time to time a stray shot, a few shouting drunkards, or some other unwonted noise in the street, would excite our apprehension; then again, occasionally, some friend, passing with a patrol before our door, would step in and report that ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... fact that Verman could not have pronounced these words rendered them no less clear in his mind; they began to stir his apprehension, and nothing becomes more rapidly tumultuous than apprehension once it is stirred. That he might possibly obtain release by making a noise was too daring a thought and not even conceived, much less entertained, by the little and humble Verman. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... hanging, like dew on a gossamer, on a curious web of subtle fancy and imperfect knowledge. First you have a vague idea of its size, coupled with wonder at the work of the great Builder of its walls and foundations; then an apprehension of its eternity, a pathetic sense of its perpetualness, and your own transientness, as of the grass upon its side;—then, and in very sadness, a sense of strange companionship with past generations, in seeing what they saw. They did ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... guided wandering eyes to heaven's most beautiful star. This intangible and unincarnate vision exacts more from its votaries than the love which walks the earth: holding the lover ever in the strain of apprehension, it inures him to unwearying worship, and itself moving in regions incorruptible, never loses the glory of its first hour. The years may pass, but one face, like a hallowed thing, abides continually; years may fret and corrode ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... for purposes of illustration, it will be seen that there has never been the slightest ground for such an apprehension. No colored man in that State ever occupied a judicial position above that of Justice of the Peace and very few aspired to that position. Of seven State officers only one, that of Secretary of State, was filled by a colored man, until 1873, when ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... simple will His illumination and leading be. He comes to "guide us into all truth." He comes to shed light upon our own hearts, and to show us ourselves. He comes to reveal Christ, to give, and then to illumine, the Holy Scriptures, and to make Divine realities vivid and clear to our spiritual apprehension. He comes as a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, to "enlighten the eyes of our understanding, that we may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... Boleyn's attendants were alarmed for her reason, and there seemed good grounds for the apprehension, so wildly and incoherently did she talk, and so violently comport herself—she who was usually so gentle now weeping as if her soul would pass away in tears—now breaking into fearful hysterical laughter. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... over and over, and over. They might also see my fears in my countenance, in my tears, and also in my trembling under the apprehension of the Judgment that did hang over our heads; but all was not sufficient to prevail with them to ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... felicitous. In one of its features, the habit of supplying connecting links to Horace's not unfrequently disconnected thoughts, perhaps I should have done wisely to follow it more than I have done: but the matter is one where a line must be drawn, and I am not without apprehension as it is that the scholar will sometimes blame me for introducing what the general reader at any rate may thank me for. I should be glad if any notice which I may be fortunate enough to attract should go beyond my own work, and extend to a predecessor who, if he had published a ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... to ask you for something for her shoulder," said Grandmother Thacher, much pleased, "she'll tell you about it, it was a fall she had out of an apple-tree,"—and Nan looked up with not a little apprehension, but presently tucked her small hand inside the doctor's and was more than ready to go with him. "I thought she looked a little pale," the doctor said, to which Mrs. Thacher answered that it was a merciful Providence who had kept the child ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... In Hamilton's "brief account" he says that their lives were often threatened by the borderers, but that "our guard behaved very well, protected us, and hunted for us." At the Falls he found "a number of settlers who lived in log-houses, in eternal apprehension from the Indians," and he adds: "The people at the forts are in a wretched state, obliged to enclose the cattle every night within the fort, and carry their rifles to the field when they go to plough or cut wood." He speaks of Boon's kindness in his short printed narrative ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... excitement of the populace, stirred up by frequent appeals to the worst passions in the human breast, and by highly-colored accounts of the boldness with which the "new doctrines" had for weeks been preached within the precincts of the court, that serious apprehension was entertained lest Beza and his companions might be assaulted by the way.[1109] The peaceable ministers of religion were, therefore, accompanied by a strong escort of one hundred mounted archers of the royal guard. After a ride of less than half an hour, they reached the nuns' ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... the flap and looked out. "They were Ashby's men—all those three!" He began to cry, though noiselessly. "They hadn't ought to cut at me like that—shooting, too, without looking! They ought to ha' seen I wasn't no damned Yank—" The figure in the straw moved. Steve turned sick with apprehension. "Did you hear what I said? I was just a-joking. Gawd! It's enough to make a man wish he was a Johnny Reb—Hey, what did ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... Humour did by no means hit with my Inclinations: And this gave Fondlove the unhappy Advantage over me. For, finding me one Day all alone in my Chamber, and lying on my Bed, in as mournful and wretched a Condition to my then foolish Apprehension, as now I am, he urged his Passion with such Violence, and accursed Success for me, with reiterated Promises of Marriage, whensoever I pleas'd to challenge 'em, which he bound with the most sacred Oaths, and most dreadful Execrations: that partly with my Aversion to the other, and partly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... continue, though the apprehension of some of the rioters who destroyed the Pontardulais gate has had some effect. The following distressing scene is ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... brow, the upward poise of the head. His younger brother was nondescript, with dark hair and full lips. Margaret observed her children with a curiously detached air, Isabelle thought. Was she looking for signs of Larry in that second son? Alas, she might see Larry always, with the cold apprehension of a woman too wise to deceive herself! The little girl, fresh from her nap, was round and undefined, and the mother took her into her arms, cuddling her close to her breast, as if nothing, not even the seed of Larry, could separate ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... How we are mixed of the many elements! she thought, as an observer; and self-justifyingly thought on, and with truth, that duty urged her upon this journey; and proudly thought, that she had not a shock of the painful great organ in her breast at the prospect at the end, or any apprehension of its failure ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... question and criticism in certain quarters. This must be for one of three reasons. In the first place, the position which I took may not be a tenable one. In the second place, it is possible that the views expressed, being somewhat new and unfamiliar, were not found easy of apprehension and acceptance. In the third place, it is possible that, in endeavoring to treat so large a subject, I did not analyze and illustrate enough to make myself ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... depressing result of this labour, of a too exacting labour? I know not. But at times (it is his one melancholy!) he expresses a strange apprehension of poverty, of penury and mean surroundings in old age; reminding me of that childish disposition to hoard, which I noticed in him of old. And then—inglorious Watteau, as he is!—at times that steadiness, in which he is so ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... danger on payment of a tax. Thus men cease protecting themselves, and so in the course of time lose the ability to protect themselves, because the faculty of courage has atrophied through disuse. Brooding apprehension and crouching fear are the properties of civilized men—men who are protected by the State. The joy of reveling in life is not possible in cities. Bolts and bars, locks and keys, soldiers and police, and a hundred other symbols of distrust, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... solitude of this road must infallibly produce its effect—that of fear or apprehension—on a being belonging to the human race; but at this moment the old man was so deeply plunged in thought that nothing could make him forget the anxiety he felt at not arriving in time at the place where ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... disciplined self without puzzled Millard and piqued the curiosity he felt to understand what manner of young girl this was, habitually so self-mastered, and apparently so full of unknown power or of unawakened sensibilities. An apprehension of potencies undeveloped in Miss Callender gave her new acquaintance the feeling of an explorer who stands on the margin of a land virgin and unknown, eager to discover what is beyond his sight. For Millard's main interest ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... into the wilderness. Day after day he cast wistful glances upon the vast mountain barrier piercing the clouds in the distant horizon. Beyond that barrier, neither the sheriff nor the tax-gatherer were to be encountered. His soul, naturally incapable of fear, experienced no dread in apprehension of Indian hostilities, or the ferocity of wild beasts. Even the idea of the journey through these sublime solitudes of an unexplored region, was far more attractive to him than the tour of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... manifestly appears, and which in the following treatise will be specially reasoned out, the greatest part of men live more according to the Sense than according to Reason; and those who live according to the Sense can never be enamoured of this Lady, since of her they can have no apprehension whatever. ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... the month of April, in the year 1521, an open wagon containing two persons was driven along one of the roads of Germany, the horse being kept at his best pace, while now and then one of the occupants looked back as if in apprehension. This was the man who held the reins. The other, a short but presentable person, with pale, drawn face, lit by keen eyes, seemed too deeply buried in thought to be heedful of surrounding affairs. When he did lift his eyes they were directed ahead, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... so good?" he returned with a glance of something like apprehension at Miss Flite. "It's a providence I met you, miss; I doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." And he put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Pennsylvania to Georgia, but still more its extraordinary qualities and the discipline of its history, made it a factor of prime importance in the events of the times just before and just after the achievement of the national independence. For generations it had been schooled to the apprehension and acceptance of an elaborately articulated system of theology and church order as of divine authority. Its prejudices and animosities were quite as potent as its principles. Its fixed hereditary aversion to the English government and the English church was the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... holy, and near to thine own essence as aught, to mortal apprehension, can be, this thy life flows forth as a band which binds spirits with spirits in one, as air and ether of the one world of Reason, inconceivable and incomprehensible, and yet lying plainly revealed to the spiritual eye. Conducted by this light-stream, thought floats unrestrained ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... their cultivation in the latter is so much the greater; which is one way of accounting for the giants in science that have appeared in the north, It is moreover remarkable, that the northern nations have a stronger apprehension of abstract propositions, and a greater fondness for generalizing, than seems to be the case in the south. The difference between a Frenchman and a German is observable in this particular, by any one who attends to their manner of telling stories. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various

... name of trustee was removed. But Muehlenberg rose above the present necessities and conditions of the local congregation, and designed this constitution to be, as it became, the one which should be the general constitution for all the united congregations of the Ministerium. He had a full apprehension of the importance of the work in which he was engaged, and devoted to it his wisest judgment, and the results of his own experience and varied observations in the working of congregational constitutions. He also recognized the character of the civil government of the land ...
— The Organization of the Congregation in the Early Lutheran Churches in America • Beale M. Schmucker

... the prearranged programme, and made the Queen smile at the emphasis with which they "confounded politics" and "frustrated knavish tricks," remember the fervour with which on many a past occasion the same strains testified to Ulster's loyalty in the midst of perplexity and apprehension? If these memories crowded in, they must have added to the sense of relief arising from the conviction that the ceremony they were now witnessing was the realisation of the policy propounded by Carson, when he declared that Ulster must always be ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... thoroughfare of the city, a very public place in which to do him violence; but for that reason it was more accordant with the audacious genius of his enemy. The atrium underwent a change; with all its elegance and beauty, it was no more than a trap. Apprehension always ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... dread successor. Since Monday he had with difficulty accomplished his tasks; each time he hastened home it was with unreasoning fear lest something bad come to pass in his absence. And now it was no longer only apprehension. Thyrza was changing under his eyes. She was physically ill, and he knew that some agitation possessed her ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... inquired the young girl, trembling with apprehension. M. de Villefort only replied by offering his arm to his daughter. It was just in time, for Valentine's head swam, and she staggered; Madame de Villefort instantly hastened to her assistance, and aided her husband in dragging her to the carriage, saying—"What a singular event! ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... replied, while another shudder ran along his nerves; "but why should I fear it? I, who have become worthless to myself and annoying to my friends; exquisitely sensible of my true condition, yet wanting the power to change it; cursed with a lively apprehension of all that I ought now to be, yet totally incapable of even making an effort to be so! My dear sir, I feel deeply the kindness of your motives, but it is too late for me to hope to profit by ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... be a cat still And if ever I fall on it again, I deserve to be undone Apprehension of the King of France's invading us As very a gossip speaking of her neighbours as any body Baited at Islington, and so late home about 11 at night Called at a little ale-house, and had an eele pye Checking her last night in the ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger

... seems something nobler than genius to be In that dull patient labor no genius relieves, That absence of all joy which yet never grieves; The humility of it! the grandeur withal! The sublimity of it! And yet, should you call The man's own very slow apprehension to this, He would ask, with a stare, what sublimity is! His work is the duty to which he was born; He accepts it, without ostentation or scorn: And this man is no uncommon type (I thank Heaven!) Of this land's common men. In all other lands, even The type's self ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... and a rusty red hull. The side-plates of this red hull, Blake observed, were as pitted and scarred as the face of an Egyptian obelisk. Her ventilators were askew and her funnel was scrofulous and many of her rivet-heads seemed to be eaten away. But this was not once a source of apprehension to the ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... he finds it, with little of the imaginative, "in dim grand outlines of a picture which must be filled up by the reader, guided only by a few glorious touches powerfully standing out." A native quickness of apprehension and intense feeling nurtured this poetic sentiment among the Arabs. The continuous enmity among the various tribes produced a sort of knight-errantry which gave material to the poet; and the richness of his language put a tongue in his mouth which could voice forth the finest shades of description ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner



Words linked to "Apprehension" :   gaining control, savvy, self-knowledge, discernment, apprehend, outlook, appreciation, foreboding, grasp, taking into custody, capture, seizure, prospect, hold, smattering, trepidation, fear, gloominess, sombreness, catch, suspense, expectation, knowing, pinch



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