trepidation

Definition

Anxiety over the uncertain future or possible ill-occurrence.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin trepidātiō, from trepidō (“be agitated”).

Example Sentences

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

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