trepidation

plural trepidations

1. countableuncountableAnxiety over the uncertain future or possible ill-occurrence.

   I decided, with considerable trepidation, to let him drive my car without me.

   4 more examples

   She reached it soon after half-past two. She found its gloomy nineteenth-century façade, black with the smuts of ninety years, a little daunting, and mounted its broad steps in some trepidation. But she rang the bell hard and knocked firmly.

   1915, Edgar Jepson, “The Reluctant Duke”, in Happy Pollyooly: The Rich Little Poor Girl, Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 135

   She opened the drawing-room door in trepidation. Would she find Esther drowned with her head in the goldfish bowl, or hanged from the chandelier by her stay-lace?

   1929, M. Barnard Eldershaw, chapter VII, in A House is Built

   When I went, I left from the station / With a haversack and some trepidation

   1990, Chris Lowe, Neil Tennant, “Being Boring”, performed by Pet Shop Boys

   The Midlanders will hope the victory will kickstart a campaign that looked to have hit the buffers, but the sense of trepidation enveloping the Reebok Stadium heading into the new year underlines the seriousness of the predicament facing Owen Coyle's men.

   2011 December 10, Marc Higginson, “Bolton 1 – 2 Aston Villa”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: agitation, apprehension, consternation, fear, hesitation, worry

2. countableuncountableAn involuntary trembling, sometimes an effect of paralysis, but usually caused by terror or fear.

   Synonyms: quaking, quivering

3. countableobsoleteuncountableastronomyA libration of the starry sphere in the Ptolemaic system; a motion ascribed to the firmament, to account for certain small changes in the position of the ecliptic and of the stars.