Meanings
- rareuncountableFailure to notice; failure to be aware of; lack of apprehension.
He paled a little, and sucked his lip, his eyes wandering to the girl, who stood in stolid inapprehension of what was being said.
1909, Raphael Sabatini, St Martin's Summer, published 2008, →ISBN, page 292 more examples
These, like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident.
1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Purloined LetterCamile is naturally disgusted with Paul but he doesn't seem to apprehend her reason—it is this inapprehension of the obvious which creates the tension.
1966, Paul J. Sharits, “Red, Blue, Godard”, in Film Quarterly, volume 19, number 4, page 27Synonyms: apprehension, awareness, perception
Synonyms & antonyms
nounFailure to notice; failure to be aware of; lack of apprehension.
Origin
Cite this entry
inapprehension. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/inapprehension
“inapprehension.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/inapprehension. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “inapprehension,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/inapprehension.
Source: inapprehension on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.