receipt

Pluralreceipts

Formsreceipts, receipting, receipted

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A written note or slip in which someone confirms having been given a particular item or amount of money.

   Always ask for a receipt when you pay in cash.

   She filed every receipt for her tax records.

   Similarvoucher, slip

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of receiving something, or the fact that it has been received.

   Payment is due within thirty days of receipt of the invoice.

   The office sent an automatic reply to confirm receipt of the application.

   Similardelivery, arrival, acceptance

   Note

   Commerce and correspondence keep this sense alive in a few fixed phrases: payment on receipt of the goods, within thirty days of receipt, to acknowledge receipt. The older pattern was at the receipt of, as when Shakespeare's letter-writer in The Merchant of Venice says he was very sick at the receipt of the letter. Today on receipt of is the usual choice, and it carries a businesslike, formal tone.

3. 3
   nounusually plural

   A quantity or amount received, especially money taken in; takings.

   Annual receipts from exports rose sharply last year.

   The charity counted its receipts after the gala.

   Similartakings, income, proceeds, revenue, earnings

   Oppositeexpenditure, outgoings

   Note

   Here the word counts money rather than paper, and it nearly always does so in the plural. A weekend's receipts are what a theater took in, set against what it cost to mount the show. The plural also keeps it apart from the written acknowledgment. When receipts are said to cover costs, or to rise and fall, they are sums of money, not slips.

4. 4
   nounusually plural

   Evidence or documentation kept to prove one's past actions or accomplishments.

   Without a single receipt to back the boast, no one believed him.

   He posted screenshots as receipts of his early support for the project.

   Similarproof, evidence

   Note

   A modern stretch of the paper slip: anything that proves you did what you say you did, just as a receipt proves you paid. It is usually plural. On The Real Housewives of Atlanta in 2020, a marriage certificate is offered as a receipt. Typical phrasings are to show, produce or bring the receipts. Expect the phrase in conversation, television and social media rather than in formal prose.

5. 5
   nounusually plural

   Evidence, such as documentation or screen captures, of someone's past wrongdoing.

   The reporter had a receipt for every claim of corruption.

   Fans dug up old posts as receipts of the star's hypocrisy.

   Similarproof, evidence

   Note

   Internet slang turns the proof against someone else. In this sense receipts are screenshots or documents that expose another person's wrongdoing, as in we've got the receipts. That is the mirror image of proof of one's own record, which defends the speaker. Context usually makes clear whether someone is vindicating themselves or exposing another person. The usage is informal and online, and it is almost always plural.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To give or write a receipt acknowledging that something has been received.

   Ask the cashier to receipt the bill once you settle it.

   Vendors must receipt all goods delivered to the warehouse.

   Similaracknowledge

   Note

   A regular transitive verb: receipting, receipted, as in a receipted delivery. Its object is the thing received, so a clerk receipts delivered goods by writing out an acknowledgment for them. Its bill-stamping partner is different: there the object is the bill itself, and receipting it means marking it paid. Both uses belong to office and warehouse English rather than everyday speech.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To mark a bill or document as paid by writing or stamping a receipt on it.

   Clerks receipt every paid invoice with a red stamp.

   He receipted the bill and handed it back to the customer.

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