APPREHEN'SION, noun

1. The act of taking or arresting; as, the felon, after his apprehension escaped.

2. The mere contemplation of things without affirming, denying, or passing any judgment; the operation of the mind in contemplating ideas, without comparing them with others, or referring them to external objects; simple intellection.

3. An inadequate or imperfect idea, as when the word is applied to our knowledge of God.

4. Opinion; conception; sentiments. In this sense, the word often denotes a belief, founded on sufficient evidence to give preponderation to the mind, but insufficient to induce certainty.

To be false, and to be thought false, is all one, in respect of men, who act not according to truth, but apprehension

In our apprehension the facts prove the issue.

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

6. Fear; suspicion; the prospect of future evil, accompanied with uneasiness of mind.

Claudius was in no small apprehension for his own life.