different between apprehend vs realize

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French apprehender (compare modern French appréhender), from Latin apprehendere. Compare Spanish aprehender.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /æ.p?i?h?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd

Verb

apprehend (third-person singular simple present apprehends, present participle apprehending, simple past and past participle apprehended)

1. (transitive, archaic) To take or seize; to take hold of.
   • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, Of Contentedness

     We have two hands to apprehend it.

   1. (transitive, law enforcement) To take or seize (a person) by legal process; to arrest.

2. (transitive) To take hold of with the understanding, that is, to conceive in the mind; to become cognizant of; to understand; to recognize; to consider.
   • 1639, Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre

     This suspicion of Earl Reimund, though at first but a buzz, soon got a sting in the king's head, and he violently apprehended it.

   • 1858, William Ewart Gladstone, Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age

     The eternal laws, such as the heroic age apprehended them.
3. (transitive) To anticipate; especially, to anticipate with anxiety, dread, or fear; to fear.
4. (intransitive) To think, believe, or be of opinion; to understand; to suppose.
5. (intransitive) To be apprehensive; to fear.
   • c. 1700, Nicholas Rowe (translator), Characters: Or, the Manners of the Age (originally by Jean de La Bruyère)

     It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.

Usage notes

To apprehend, comprehend. These words come into comparison as describing acts of the mind. Apprehend denotes the laying hold of a thing mentally, so as to understand it clearly, at least in part. Comprehend denotes the embracing or understanding it in all its compass and extent. We may apprehend many truths which we do not comprehend. The very idea of God supposes that He may be apprehended, though not comprehended, by rational beings. We may apprehend much of Shakespeare's aim and intention in the character of Hamlet or King Lear; but few will claim that they have comprehended all that is embraced in these characters. --Trench.
(material dates from 1913)

Synonyms

• catch, seize, arrest, detain, capture, conceive, understand, imagine, believe, fear, dread

Derived terms

• apprehension
• misapprehend

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• realise (non-Oxford British spelling)

Etymology

Attested since 1610, from French réaliser, from Middle French real (“actual”), from Old French reel, from Latin re?lis, from r?s (“thing, event, deed, fact”); as if real +? -ize.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /??i.?.la?z/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????.la?z/
• Hyphenation: re?al?ize

Verb

realize (third-person singular simple present realizes, present participle realizing, simple past and past participle realized)

2. (formal, transitive) To make real; to convert from the imaginary or fictitious into reality; to bring into real existence

   Synonyms: accomplish, actualize, materialize

   • 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica

     We realize what Archimedes had only in hypothesis, weighting a single grain against the globe of earth.

3. (transitive) To become aware of (a fact or situation, especially of something that has been true for a long time).
   • 2002, The Flaming Lips, Do You Realize??

     Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?

4. (transitive) To cause to seem real; to sense vividly or strongly; to make one's own in thought or experience.
   • 1859, Ferna Vale, Natalie; or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds

     Over the mind of the tourist, visiting the Old World for the first time,—countries where have transpired thrilling events recorded in history, what an immensity of thought and feeling sweeps! It was thus with Natalie; she could not realize that she was treading in the footsteps of royalty, who living in long past days, had held sway over this land, had looked upon this land of "merrie England" as their home.

   • 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, II:

     That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

   • 1881, Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides Translated into English

     Many coincidences […] soon begin to appear in them [Greek inscriptions] which realize ancient history to us.

   • 1996, Alan Brown, Audrey Hepburn's Neck

     Drawings appear fully realized in his mind's eye at a furious rate, before he even picks up his pencil.

5. (transitive, business) To acquire as an actual possession; to obtain as the result of plans and efforts; to gain; to get

6. (transitive, business, finance) To convert any kind of property into money, especially property representing investments, such as shares, bonds, etc.
   • 1855, Washington Irving, Wolfert's Roost

     Wary men took the alarm, and began to realize, a word now first brought into use to express the conversion of ideal property into something real.

7. (transitive, business, obsolete) To convert into real property; to make real estate of.
8. (transitive, linguistics) To turn an abstract linguistic object into actual language, especially said of a phoneme's conversion into speech sound.
   • 2016, Martin Maiden, The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, Oxford University Press (?ISBN), page 297:

     Many (probably most) speakers realize it as [ø] or [œ] in other contexts as well. In Midi French, schwa is realized more frequently than in northern varieties, including in word-final position, where it generally (but not always) corresponds to […]

Derived terms

• realizable
• realization
• realizer

Related terms

• real
• realism
• realistic
• reality

Translations

References

• realize in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• realize in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Mauritian Creole

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ealize/

Etymology

From French réaliser.

Verb

realize (medial form realiz)

1. to realize.

Related terms

• realizasion
• realizater

Portuguese

Verb

realize

1. First-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of realizar
2. Third-person singular (ele, ela, also used with tu and você^?) present subjunctive of realizar
3. Third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of realizar
4. Third-person singular (você) negative imperative of realizar