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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

receptive.

Capable of receiving something.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ɹɪˈsɛptɪv/Received-Pronunciation/ɹəˈsɛptɪv/General-American
  1. Capable of receiving something.

  2. Ready to receive something, especially new concepts or ideas.

    receptive to the idea
    The patient was receptive to her treatment.
  3. Ready for reproduction; fertile.

  4. Of, affecting, or pertaining to the understanding of language rather than its expression.

    receptive fluency
    receptive aphasia
  5. Of a female animal (especially a mammal): prepared to mate; in heat, in oestrus.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Italic *wre- Latin re- substratebor.? Proto-Indo-European *kap- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti Proto-Italic *kapjō Archaic Latin kapiō Latin capiō Latin recipiō Latin receptus Proto-Indo-European *-wós Proto-Indo-European *-iHwósder. Latin -īvus Medieval Latin receptivusbor. Middle English receptive English receptive From Late Middle English receptive, receptyue (“capable of receiving something; acting as a receptacle”), 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’). 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- (“to hold; to seize”)).

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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.