A nervous, hesitant apprehension.
A nervous, hesitant apprehension — fear mixed with timidity and an almost-trembling reluctance to act.
Lays over dread a coloring of timidity, trembling, and faltering: it is apprehension with a bodily and behavioral edge, specifically tied to standing at the threshold of an action you're reluctant to take (“approached the house with trepidation”). This distinguishes it from passive foreboding (no action implied) and sudden alarm (no hesitation — you react). More formal and literary than worry or nervousness, and more about the moment of decision than the sustained state of anxiety.
c. 1600, from Latin trepidationem “agitation, trembling,” from trepidare “to tremble, hurry,” from trepidus “alarmed.” The literal root sense is physical trembling.
The earliest English senses were literal (“tremulous motion, tremor,” now archaic); these gave way to the modern figurative “fearful hesitancy.” No recent-generation shift is sourced.