receptive
English
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)
- Capable of receiving something.
- Antonyms: irreceptive, nonreceptive, unreceptive
- Ready to receive something, especially new concepts or ideas.
- Synonyms: acceptive, susceptive
- Antonym: unreceptive
- (botany) Of a female flower or gynoecium: ready for reproduction; fertile.
- (neurology, psychology) Of, affecting, or pertaining to the understanding of language rather than its expression.
- Antonym: expressive
- (zoology) Of a female animal (especially a mammal): prepared to mate; in heat, in oestrus.
- Synonym: oestrual
Derived terms
- baroreceptive
- bioreceptive
- chemoreceptive
- electroreceptive
- extrareceptive
- hygroreceptive
- irreceptive
- magnetoreceptive
- mechanoreceptive
- multireceptive
- nociceptive
- nonreceptive
- photoreceptive
- prereceptive
- proprioceptive
- receptive aphasia
- receptive field
- receptive language
- receptively
- receptiveness
- receptive spot
- receptivity
- telereceptive
- thermoreceptive
- unreceptive
- unreceptively
- unreceptiveness
Related terms
- receipt
- receive
- receiver
- receivership
- receiving (noun)
- recept
- receptable
- receptacle
- receptacular
- receptaculum
- receptance
- receptant (archaic)
- receptary (archaic or obsolete)
- receptibility
- receptible (archaic)
- reception
- receptionism
- receptionist
- receptitious (archaic)
- receptor
- receptoral
- receptory
- receptually (rare)
- receptual (rare)
Translations
|
|
References
- “receptī̆ve, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- “receptive, adj.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020; “receptive, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.