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receptive

adjective

Simple meaning

Ready or willing to receive favorably.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rihsehptiv

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɹɪˈsɛptɪv

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Ready or willing to receive favorably

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

  3. zoology

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

  4. Capable of receiving something.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Ready or willing to receive favorably

Used this way, receptive is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use receptive

  • “Receptive to the proposals.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Affecting

receptive languagereceptive aphasiaparticularly receptive

Other combinations

receptive fieldreceptive audienceless receptivereceptive mindreceptive mood

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • receptornounPerson or profession

    A cellular structure that is postulated to exist in order to mediate between a chemical agent that acts on nervous tissue and the physiological response.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • receptive aphasianounCompound term

    Aphasia characterized by fluent but meaningless speech and severe impairment of the ability understand spoken or written words.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: ready or willing to receive favorably

unreceptiveRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.