Receipt

How to spell receipt

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce receipt

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does receipt mean?

1. nounA written or printed statement confirming that money has been paid or goods have been received.
2. nounThe action or fact of receiving something, such as a payment or delivery.

Receipt in a sentence

• The shop assistant printed a receipt for the refund.

• The contract takes effect on receipt of the signed copy.

• Keep every receipt if you want to claim the expense back.

• Please confirm receipt of this email at your earliest convenience.

Where does receipt come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb recipere, meaning 'to take back' or 'to receive', built from re- 'back' and capere 'to take'. Its past participle recepta gave rise to a noun meaning 'a thing received', which passed through the Old French and Anglo-Norman form receite before settling into Middle English during the 1300s, originally describing the act of receiving or a remedy taken in. The spelling is the famous trap here: medieval scribes later reinserted a silent 'p' to make the word visibly match its Latin ancestor recepta, even though English speakers never pronounced it. The same capere root quietly sits inside relatives such as 'receive', 'capable', and 'recipe', which is itself a near twin of receipt. The modern everyday sense, a written acknowledgement that money or goods have been received, was well established by the 1600s.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• ceipt (from Latin capere/recipere: to take, receive)