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I have been saying this for years, I think. I also thought I had heard it used before. However, today I used it in a sentence, and my spell checker under lined it.

The sentence(fragment) I wrote was:

"and this idea was recepted fairly well."

I did a Google search and found "recept" is a word:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recept

which does sort of align with my intent of usage.

Then there is "receptacle": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/receptacle

and "reception": https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reception

I also found "receipted" as a suggestion that may sort of correlate with my usage.

Has anyone else ever used, or heard "recepted"?

Oh, and PS, my voice to text recognized and wrote the word as such.

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    Were you looking for received? Ideas are normally received, unless you mean this idea of yours was turned into a mental image formed by repeated exposure, which sounds… fishy.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 16:53
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    whichiscorrect.com/received-or-recepted
    – Justin
    Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 16:54
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    Think: received and accepted...
    – takintoolong
    Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 17:05
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    Obviously if you've been saying it for years, it has to be a word. What else could it be, some sort of indigestion-triggered belly-fart? :)
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 20:16
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    @takintoolong Because French, actually. These are all French loan words. They’re not really regular (to the extent that a verb and a noun can be ‘regular’) in French either, but there at least they’re the outcome of regular Latin words undergoing regular sound changes. In Latin, the verb is recipere and its past participle is (regularly) receptus. On its way to French, intervocalic /p/ became /b/, then /v/, and /pt/ became /tt/; so recipe- > recive- (Fr. recevoir), but recept- > recett-. The spelling of rece(i)pt was changed back to match the etymology.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 22:24

1 Answer 1

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If you wish to use recept as a verb, you’re a bit late to the party:

Where it is said, that whosoever shall recept the thing stoln willingly and knowingly, he shall be punished as the principal thief; and from this it may be concluded, that recept with us, is properly, when the thing stoln is recepted, and not when the stealer without the theft is receipted; for to as the recepting of the thief, it appears only to be punishable, when letters of intercommuning are published, prohibiting all the leidges to recept or fortifie a malefactor, … — Sir George Mackenzie, The Laws and Customes of Scotland, 1678. EEBO

This usage survived into the 19th c., but today is obsolete: receive is the verb you want. Just as you might conceive of something and produce a concept, you do not *concept a better mousetrap.

Even the noun has undergone changes over the years:

We should at the ministracion and recept of the sacrament, haue good natural bread: but in stede thereof, we haue printed waifers, and suche starched stuffe, as is not pure &; perfecte bread, nor lyke vnto that whych was vsed in the eating of the Lordes holy supper at the first. — John Ponet, Humble and Unfained Confession, 1554. EEBO

Army Medical Department, 7 Nov. 1829.
Sir — I have the honour to acknowledge the recept of your note of the 30th October … — Sydney Monitor, 13 Aug. 1831.

We have just been shown a recept for curing chronic, sore eyes, which is the result of a long and close study of a very distinguished physician lately from Scotland. — Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield IL), 6 Sept. 1858.

Today, it would be reception of the Sacrament, receipt of a letter, and a prescription for curing sore eyes. Since the 1580s, the earlier alternative to recept was recipe, from Middle French récipé, from Latin recipe, ‘take!’, surviving today only in the abbreviation ℞ at a pharmacy.

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    "receipt" is also an old form of "recipe" (instructions for cooking) - particularly in American English.
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Commented Aug 19, 2019 at 13:56
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    @MartinBonner: A number of European languages have borrowed this word. In a prescription for antibiotics and a recipe for a cake the word is still Rezept.
    – KarlG
    Commented Aug 19, 2019 at 14:21
  • I was going to make exactly that point about German!
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Commented Aug 19, 2019 at 14:25
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    I learned a thing today. I did not know what the ℞ meant (and hadn't been important enough to go find out).
    – Draco18s no longer trusts SE
    Commented Aug 19, 2019 at 14:55
  • Thank you for this information, it is interesting. But, is the answer yes? It sounds like it is a word, just happens to be a word not used anymore? Except by me of course.
    – takintoolong
    Commented Aug 20, 2019 at 12:22

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