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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

reception.

The act of receiving.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɹɪˈsɛp.ʃn̩/
  1. The act of receiving.

    countable · uncountable
  2. The act or ability to receive radio or similar signals.

    uncountable
    We have poor TV reception in the valley.
    The new system provides exceptional quality of the reception signal.
  3. A social engagement, usually to formally welcome someone.

    countable · uncountable
    After the wedding we proceeded to the reception.
  4. A reaction; the treatment received on first talking to a person, arriving at a place, etc.

    countable · uncountable
    The ambassador's jokes met a cold reception.
  5. The desk of a hotel or office where guests are received.

    countable · uncountable
    The reception of the hotel is on the second floor; exit the lift and turn right.
  6. The school year, or part thereof, between preschool and Year 1, when children are introduced to formal education.

    UK · countable · uncountable
  7. The conscious adoption or transplantation of legal phenomena from a different culture.

    countable · uncountable
  8. The act of catching a pass.

    countable · uncountable
  9. Reading viewed as the active process of receiving a text in any medium (written, spoken, signed, multimodal, nonverbal), consisting of several steps, such as ideation, comprehension, reconstruction, interpretation.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English recepcion, reception, from Middle French reception, from Latin receptiōn- (“the act of receiving; reception”), from recipiō (“receive”), from re- (“back”) + capiō (“to hold”). Equivalent to receive + -tion.

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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.