apprehension

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Fearful or uneasy anticipation of the future; dread.
2. n. The act of seizing or capturing; arrest.
3. n. The ability to apprehend or understand; understanding.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of seizing or taking hold of; prehension: as, the hand is the organ of apprehension.
2. n. The act of arresting or seizing by legal process; arrest; seizure: as, the thief, after his apprehension, escaped.
3. n. A laying hold by the mind; mental grasp; the act or faculty of perceiving anything by the senses;
4. n. of learning or becoming familiar with anything;
5. n. of forming an image in the imagination (the common meaning in English for three centuries, and the technical meaning in the Kantian theory of cognition);
6. n. of catching the meaning of anything said or written;
7. n. of simple apprehension (which see, below);
8. n. of attention to something present to the imagination.
9. n. Anticipation of adversity; dread or fear of coming evil; distrust of the future.
10. n. Alarm, Apprehension, Fright, etc. (see alarm), disquiet, dread, anxiety, misgiving, solicitude, nervousness, fearfulness.

Wiktionary

1. n. rare The physical act of seizing or taking hold of; seizure.
2. n. law The act of seizing or taking by legal process; arrest.
3. n. The act of grasping with the intellect; the contemplation of things, without affirming, denying, or passing any judgment; intellection; perception.
4. n. Opinion; conception; sentiment; idea.
5. n. The faculty by which ideas are conceived or by which perceptions are grasped; understanding.
6. n. Anticipation, mostly of things unfavorable; dread or fear at the prospect of some future ill.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of seizing or taking hold of; seizure.
2. n. The act of seizing or taking by legal process; arrest.
3. n. The act of grasping with the intellect; the contemplation of things, without affirming, denying, or passing any judgment; intellection; perception.
4. n. Opinion; conception; sentiment; idea.
5. n. The faculty by which ideas are conceived; understanding.
6. n. Anticipation, mostly of things unfavorable; distrust or fear at the prospect of future evil.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. painful expectation
2. n. fearful expectation or anticipation
3. n. the cognitive condition of someone who understands
4. n. the act of apprehending (especially apprehending a criminal)