received

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of receive.

   He received an award for his years of service.

   The committee received hundreds of complaints last month.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty here. It is the simple past (she received the letter) and the participle behind the perfect and the passive (it has been received, he was warmly received). The passive suits the hosting meaning: guests are received into a house or a company. The verb's sense of giving credence to a custom or tradition is where the adjective for accepted ideas comes from.

2. 2
   adjective

   Generally accepted as correct or true, as a matter of common opinion or tradition.

   The received view among historians is that the treaty triggered the conflict.

   She built her career by challenging the received wisdom of her field.

   Similaraccepted, conventional, established, prevailing, orthodox

   Oppositeunorthodox, unconventional

   Note

   Here the participle has settled into a judgment on ideas: received wisdom and the received view are opinions handed down rather than tested. Robin Wilkinson, writing in the Western Mail in 2012, puts the walk-a-mile-in-his-shoes proverb under received wisdom alongside other familiar sayings. The adjective does not take degrees. A view is either received or not, so phrases like "more received" sound wrong.

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