recipient

Pluralrecipients

1. 1
   nouncountable

   The person who receives something that is given, sent, or awarded to them.

   Each recipient of the scholarship must keep their grades high.

   The recipients of the email replied within minutes.

   Similaraddressee

   Oppositesender, giver, donor

   Note

   The broad sense comes almost unchanged from Latin recipiēns, 'receiving', the present participle of recipiō, by way of Middle French. It takes of for what is received (the recipient of money or goods) and pairs readily with adjectives of intent or habit: intended recipient, regular recipients. Addressee is narrower, naming only whoever a message is sent to. Recipient covers anything handed over, and medicine narrows it further to someone receiving a donor organ.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A person who receives organs or tissues donated by another individual.

   The recipient's body accepted the new heart without major complications.

   Each recipient is matched with a donor by blood and tissue type.

   Oppositedonor

   Note

   Transplant medicine speaks in pairs, and this word is always half of one: donor and recipient are rarely far apart in a clinical account. Rejection and aftercare are described from the recipient's side, and drugs that suppress the immune system are what let the recipient's body keep the graft. Outside the clinic, the general sense covers anyone who receives anything at all.

3. 3
   adjective

   Functioning to receive; taking in something that is transferred, sent, or given by another.

   The recipient nation pledged to track exactly how the funds were spent.

   Researchers measured how quickly the recipient tissue integrated the graft.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A container forming part of a still and used to catch the liquid produced by distillation.

   The chemist sealed the joint between the still head and the recipient before heating.

   As the alcohol vapor cooled, droplets gathered in the recipient.

   Similarreceiver

   Note

   Old distilling vocabulary named this vessel for its job. Vapor rises from the heated body of the alembic, cools in the head, and runs down as liquid into the recipient at the end of the apparatus. The word keeps the literal Latin participle, 'receiving', but applies it to glassware rather than to people. It is a chemist's use, well apart from the everyday sense.

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