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Fearful vs Apprehensive - What's the difference?

fearful | apprehensive |

As adjectives the difference between fearful and apprehensive

is that fearful is frightening while apprehensive is .

fearful

English

Alternative forms

* fearefull (obsolete) * fearfull (obsolete)

Adjective

(fearfuller)
  • Frightening.
  • Frightened, filled with terror.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.4:
  • Those two great champions did attonce pursew / The fearefull damzell with incessant payns [...].
  • Terrible.
  • Tending to fear.
  • fearful boy

    Synonyms

    * (frightened) frightened, timid, timorous * See also

    apprehensive

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Anticipating something with anxiety or fear.
  • * 1719 ,
  • this convinced me that there was no going on shore for us in the night on that coast, and how to venture on shore in the day was another question too; for to have fallen into the hands of any of the savages had been as bad as to have fallen into the hands of the lions and tigers; at least we were equally apprehensive of the danger of it.
  • Perceptive; quick to learn; intelligent; capable of grasping with the mind or intellect.
  • * 1670 ,
  • More fond of Miracles, than apprehensive of Truth.

    Derived terms

    * apprehensively