apprehend.
To be or become aware of (something); to perceive.
Meaning & usage
To be or become aware of (something); to perceive.
To acknowledge the existence of (something); to recognize.
To take hold of (something) with understanding; to conceive (something) in the mind; to become cognizant of; to understand.
To have a conception of (something); to consider, to regard.
To anticipate (something, usually unpleasant); especially, to anticipate (something) with anxiety, dread, or fear; to dread, to fear.
To seize or take (something); to take hold of.
To seize or take (a person) by legal process; to arrest.
Officers apprehended the suspect two streets away from the bank.
To feel (something) emotionally.
To learn (something).
To take possession of (something); to seize.
To be of opinion, believe, or think; to suppose.
To understand.
To be apprehensive; to fear.
Where this word comes from
From Late Middle English apprehenden (“to grasp, take hold of; to comprehend; to learn”), from Old French apprehender (modern French appréhender (“to apprehend; to catch; to dread”)), from Latin apprehendere, adprehendere, the present active infinitive of apprehendō, adprehendō (“to grab, grasp, seize, take; to apprehend, arrest; to comprehend, understand; to embrace, include; to take possession of, obtain, secure”), from ap-, ad- (prefix meaning ‘to’) + prehendō (“to grab, grasp, seize, snatch, take; to accost; to catch in the act, take by surprise; (figuratively, rare) of the mind: to apprehend, comprehend, grasp”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰed- (“to hold, seize, take; to find”)).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.