receive.
To be given, sent, or paid something.
Meaning & usage
To be given, sent, or paid something.
He received many presents for his birthday.
To take, as something that is offered; to accept.
He had the offer of employment, but he would not receive it.
To take goods knowing them to be stolen.
To act as a host for guests; to give admittance to; to permit to enter, as into one's house, presence, company, etc.
to receive a lodger, visitor, ambassador, messenger, etc.
To incur (an injury).
I received a bloody nose from the collision.
To allow (a custom, tradition, etc.); to give credence or acceptance to.
To detect a signal from a transmitter.
To be in a position to take possession, or hit back the ball. To be in a position to hit back a service.
To be in a position to take possession, or hit back the ball. To be in a position to catch a forward pass.
To accept into the mind; to understand.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English receyven, from Old French receivre, from Latin recipere (“take back, accept, etc.”), from re- (“back”) + capiō (“to take”); see capacious. Compare conceive, deceive, perceive. Displaced native Middle English terms in -fon/-fangen (e.g. afon, anfon, afangen, underfangen, etc. "to receive" from Old English -fōn), native Middle English thiggen (“to receive”) (from Old English þiċġan), and non-native Middle English aquilen, enquilen (“to receive”) (from Old French aquillir, encueillir).
An operation in which data is received.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English receyven, from Old French receivre, from Latin recipere (“take back, accept, etc.”), from re- (“back”) + capiō (“to take”); see capacious. Compare conceive, deceive, perceive. Displaced native Middle English terms in -fon/-fangen (e.g. afon, anfon, afangen, underfangen, etc. "to receive" from Old English -fōn), native Middle English thiggen (“to receive”) (from Old English þiċġan), and non-native Middle English aquilen, enquilen (“to receive”) (from Old French aquillir, encueillir).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.