apprehension

[In Fr. appréhension; Port, apprehensao; Lat. apprehensio, from ap prehensum, supine of apprehindo.] [APPREHEND.] I. The act or power of apprehending. 1. Physically: The act of laying hold of, grasping, or seizing with the hands or in some similar way, and especially of seizing a criminal to bring him to justice. [PREHENSION.] "A lobster hath the chely or great claw of one side longer than the other, but this is not their leg, but a part of apprehension, whereby they seize upon their prey."-Browne: Vulgar Errours. 2. Mentally: (a) The act of mentally grasping or laying hold of, especially the act of laying hold of an idea without studying it in its various relations so as to comprehend it. [COMPREHEND.] "Simple apprehension denotes no more than the soul's naked intellection of an object, without either composition or deduction."-Glanville. "And acts in that obedience, he shall gain The clearest apprehension of those truths, Which una isted reason's utmost power Is too infirin to reach!" Words worth: Excursion, bk. v. (b) Opinion, belief, founded on sufficient or resting on doubtful evidence. 44 the unpardonable guilt of murder, which, er than ex in his apprehension, was aggravated rather cused by the vice of intoxication."-Gibbon: Decline and Fall, chap. xli. (c) The power or faculty by which man mentally apprehends. "What a piece of work is a man!... in action, how like an angel! in apprehension , how like a god!" -Shakesp.: Hamlet , ii. 2. II. The state of being apprehended, or being under the influence of apprehension. 1. The state of being seized, grasped, or laid hold of; seizure. "See that he be convey'd unto the Tower: And go we, brothers, to the man that took him, To question of his apprehension ." Shakesp.: 3 Henry VI., iii. 2. "Corn. True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloster Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension."-Shakesp. King Lear, iii. 5. 2. Foreboding of evil, suspicion that something unpleasant is about to happen; fear. "But Mackay's gentle manner removed their appre hension."-Macaulay: Hist . Eng . , chap. xiii. III. That which is apprehended; an object of apprehension. a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions , motions, revolutions." Shakesp.: Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2.