Receptor

How to spell receptor

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce receptor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does receptor mean?

1. nounA molecule, cell or sensory structure that detects and responds to a specific signal, such as light, a chemical, or a drug.

Receptor in a sentence

• The painkiller works by blocking a pain receptor in the nervous system.

• Each receptor on the cell surface binds only one type of hormone.

Where does receptor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes directly from the Latin receptor, meaning 'a receiver' or 'one who takes in', which was formed from the verb recipere, 'to receive or take back'. That verb combined the prefix re-, meaning 'back' or 'again', with capere, 'to take', so the literal idea was something that takes a thing in. The same recipere root sits behind a whole family of English words such as 'receive', 'reception' and 'recipient', all sharing the cept spelling that records the Latin past participle receptus. English adopted receptor in a general sense centuries ago, but it gained its modern scientific life in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when physiologists used it for a structure that takes in a signal, whether a sensory ending or a molecule on a cell that binds a hormone or drug. Remembering that it shares the cept of 'receive' is the surest guard against the common slip of writing it with a double letter or an s.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• cept (from Latin capere: to take, receive)
• -or (agent noun suffix: a thing that does)