receptive

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. adjective open to arguments, ideas, or change
  2. adjective ready or willing to receive favorably
  3. adjective of a nerve fiber or impulse originating outside and passing toward the central nervous system

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- (“to hold; to seize”)).

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