receptive
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹɪˈsɛptɪv/
ipa: /ɹəˈsɛptɪv/
rhymes: -ɛptɪv
Forms: form: more receptive
form: most receptive
Etymology: 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-, *keh₂p- (“to hold; to seize”)).
Senses: antonyms: irreceptive
nonreceptive
unreceptive
glosses: Capable of receiving something.
examples: text: receptive to the idea
text: The patient was receptive to her treatment
text: 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.
ref: 1921, Herbert Jenkins, Malcolm Sage, Detective:
synonyms: acceptive
susceptive
antonyms: unreceptive
glosses: Ready to receive something, especially new concepts or ideas.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1917 June 24, National Geographic Magazine, Volume 31/Number 6/Our State Flowers/The Moccasin Flower:
topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
glosses: Of a female flower or gynoecium: ready for reproduction; fertile.
topics: human-sciences
medicine
neurology
neuroscience
psychology
sciences
antonyms: expressive
glosses: Of, affecting, or pertaining to the understanding of language rather than its expression.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
zoology
synonyms: oestrual
glosses: Of a female animal (especially a mammal): prepared to mate; in heat, in oestrus.
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: word: receipt
word: receive
word: receiver
word: receivership
word: receiving
word: recept
word: receptable
word: receptacle
word: receptacular
word: receptaculum
word: receptance
word: receptant
word: receptary
word: receptibility
word: receptible
word: reception
word: receptionism
word: receptionist
word: receptitious
word: receptor
word: receptoral
word: receptory
word: receptual
word: receptually