It's the Word of the Day for January 17th.
Today's word is apprehension, spelled A-P-P-R-E-H-E-N-S-I-O-N.
Apprehension is a noun.
Apprehension most often refers to the fear that something bad or unpleasant is going to happen.
It's a feeling of being worried about the future.
The word can also refer to seizure by legal process.
Here's the word used in a sentence from ESPN by Myron Medcalf.
Mark Pope felt uncertain.
There was a moment he admitted after it was clear that he was Kentucky's choice when he stood alone at home and grappled with apprehension about a job that offered both spoils he knew well and obstacles too.
There's quite a bit to comprehend about the word apprehension,
so let's take a closer look at its history.
The Latin ancestor of apprehension, and of comprehend, prehensile, and even the word prison,
among others, is the verb prehendere, meaning to grasp or to seize.
When it was first used in the 14th century, apprehension could refer to the act of learning.
a sense that is now obsolete, or the ability or power to understand things,
learning and understanding both being ways to grasp knowledge or information.
It wasn't until the late 16th century that apprehension was used,
as it still is today, for the physical seizure of something or someone as an arrest.
the most commonly used sense of apprehension today refers to a feeling that something bad is about to happen when you seize up,
perhaps with anxiety or dread, having grasped all the unpleasant possibilities.