Apprehension

Ap·pre·hen·sion

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.
    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.