English Online Dictionary. What means receive? What does receive mean?
English
Alternative forms
- receave, receyve (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English receiven, 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).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɹɪˈsiːv/
- Rhymes: -iːv
- Hyphenation: re‧ceive
Verb
receive (third-person singular simple present receives, present participle receiving, simple past and past participle received)
- (transitive) To be given, sent, or paid something.
- (transitive, dated) To take, as something that is offered; to accept.
- (law) To take goods knowing them to be stolen.
- (transitive) To act as a host for guests; to give admittance to; to permit to enter, as into one's house, presence, company, etc.
- (transitive) To incur (an injury).
- To allow (a custom, tradition, etc.); to give credence or acceptance to.
- (telecommunications) To detect a signal from a transmitter.
- (sports) To be in a position to take possession, or hit back the ball.
- (tennis, badminton, squash) To be in a position to hit back a service.
- (American football) To be in a position to catch a forward pass.
- (transitive, intransitive) To accept into the mind; to understand.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
Noun
receive (plural receives)
- (telecommunications) An operation in which data is received.
Further reading
- “receive”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “receive”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.