receptive

See also: réceptive

English

WOTD – 14 May 2021

Etymology

From Late Middle English receptive, receptyue (“capable of receiving something; acting as a receptacle”),[1] borrowed from Medieval Latin receptivus (“capable of receiving something”), from Latin receptus (“retaken, having been retaken; received, having been received”) + -īvus (suffix added to the perfect passive participial stems of verbs, forming a deverbal adjective meaning ‘doing; related to doing’).[2] Receptus is the perfect passive participle of recipiō (“to regain possession, take back; to recapture; to receive; to accept, undertake”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘back, backwards; again’) + capiō (“to capture, catch, take; to take hold, take possession; to take on; to contain, hold; to occupy; to possess; to receive, take in; to comprehend, understand; to captivate, charm”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap-, *keh₂p- (“to hold; to seize”)).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɹɪˈsɛptɪv/
  • Audio (UK):(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ɹəˈsɛptɪv/
  • Rhymes: -ɛptɪv
  • Hyphenation: re‧cept‧ive

Adjective

receptive (comparative more receptive, superlative most receptive)

  1. Capable of receiving something.
    Antonyms: irreceptive, nonreceptive, unreceptive
  2. Ready to receive something, especially new concepts or ideas.
    Synonyms: acceptive, susceptive
    Antonym: unreceptive
    receptive to the idea
    The patient was receptive to her treatment
    • 1921, Herbert Jenkins, Malcolm Sage, Detective:
      The owner drank cider at the Spotted Woodpigeon and talked pleasantly with the villagers, who, on learning that he had never even heard of the Surrey cattle-maimings, were at great pains to pour information and theories into his receptive ear.
  3. (botany) Of a female flower or gynoecium: ready for reproduction; fertile.
    • 1917 June, National Geographic Magazine, Volume 31/Number 6/Our State Flowers/The Moccasin Flower:
      When the delightful draught is quaffed and the winged beggar turns to leave, it is confronted with a straight and narrow way out, and before the open can be reached our bee must squeeze under a receptive stigma covered with sticky hairs which comb the pollen grains from the fuzzy back of the visitor.
  4. (neurology, psychology) Of, affecting, or pertaining to the understanding of language rather than its expression.
    Antonym: expressive
  5. (zoology) Of a female animal (especially a mammal): prepared to mate; in heat, in oestrus.
    Synonym: oestrual

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ “receptī̆ve, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “receptive, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “receptive, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
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