The Collaborative International Dictionary
Apprehend \Ap`pre*hend"\ ([a^]p`pr[-e]*h[e^]nd"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Apprehended; p. pr. & vb. n. Apprehending.] [L. apprehendere; ad + prehendere to lay hold of, seize; prae before + -hendere (used only in comp.); akin to Gr. chanda`nein to hold, contain, and E. get: cf. F. appr['e]hender. See Prehensile, Get.]
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To take or seize; to take hold of. [Archaic]
We have two hands to apprehend it.
--Jer. Taylor. Hence: To take or seize (a person) by legal process; to arrest; as, to apprehend a criminal.
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To take hold of with the understanding, that is, to conceive in the mind; to become cognizant of; to understand; to recognize; to consider.
This suspicion of Earl Reimund, though at first but a buzz, soon got a sting in the king's head, and he violently apprehended it.
--Fuller.The eternal laws, such as the heroic age apprehended them.
--Gladstone. -
To know or learn with certainty. [Obs.]
G. You are too much distrustful of my truth. E. Then you must give me leave to apprehend The means and manner how.
--Beau. & Fl. -
To anticipate; esp., to anticipate with anxiety, dread, or fear; to fear.
The opposition had more reason than the king to apprehend violence.
--Macaulay.Syn: To catch; seize; arrest; detain; capture; conceive; understand; imagine; believe; fear; dread.
Usage: To Apprehend, Comprehend. These words come into comparison as describing acts of the mind. Apprehend denotes the laying hold of a thing mentally, so as to understand it clearly, at least in part. Comprehend denotes the embracing or understanding it in all its compass and extent. We may apprehended many truths which we do not comprehend. The very idea of God supposes that he may be apprehended, though not comprehended, by rational beings. ``We may apprehended much of Shakespeare's aim and intention in the character of Hamlet or King Lear; but few will claim that they have comprehended all that is embraced in these characters.''
--Trench.
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: apprehend)
WordNet
adj. fully understood or grasped; "dangers not yet appreciated"; "these apprehended truths"; "a thing comprehended is a thing known as fully as it can be known" [syn: appreciated, comprehended]
Usage examples of "apprehended".
In addition, because it is an object of perception for one of them, that which is a common object for all three of them, though differently apprehended, must be an entity which also has physical existence on the bedroom wall.
On the face of it, it is impossible to hold that ideas are the only objects that we do directly apprehend and yet are also representations of realities that are never objects that we directly apprehend, for one can be said to represent the other only if both can be directly apprehended and compared.
We are conscious only of the objects apprehended, not of the ideas by which we apprehend them.
Just as two or more persons can talk to one another about a perceptual object or a remembered event that is commonly apprehended by them, so two or more persons can talk about liberty or justice as common objects of thought, or about triangularity and circularity, or about the difference between tree and shrub as distinct kinds of vegetation.
Nevertheless, he was correct in thinking that our voluntary imposition of a meaningless notation upon an object apprehended is the way in which at least some words must acquire their meaning.
It is in this way that we communicate with one another about objects that are public in the sense that they are objects apprehended by and so are common to two or more individuals.
The reason for this is that the words which name the apprehended objects of conceptual thought are always common names.
Hence we can use words to refer to apprehended objects about the existence of which we suspend judgment or ask questions.
Some object is apprehended, be it a perceptual object, an object of memory or imagination, or an object of conceptual thought.
Here the dinner bell interrupted a conversation which had wrought such an effect on Sophia, that she was, perhaps, more obliged to her bleeding in the morning, than she, at the time, had apprehended she should be.
The difficulty therefore which he apprehended there might be in corrupting this young wench, and the danger which would accrue to his character on the discovery, were such strong dissuasives, that it is probable he at first intended to have contented himself with the pleasing ideas which the sight of beauty furnishes us with.
Square rendered him superior to all emotions, and he very calmly smoaked his pipe, as was his custom in all broils, unless when he apprehended some danger of having it broke in his mouth.
I was distracted with various inventions to supply her with pleasures, she very kindly- betrayed me to one of her former lovers at Oxford, by whose care and diligence I was immediately apprehended and committed to gaol.
London road, she apprehended he would certainly be able to overtake her.
As we have said that this lady had a great affection for Jones, and as it must have appeared that she really had so, the reader may perhaps wonder at the first failure of her appointment, as she apprehended him to be confined by sickness, a season when friendship seems most to require such visits.