A receipt is a piece of paper or an email that proves you paid. In formal texts, receipt also means “receiving”: on receipt of payment, meaning “when payment is received”. Instructions for cooking a dish are a recipe, and a doctor's note for medicine is a prescription. The p in receipt is silent: it sounds like ri-SEET.
receipt: will you get the meaning right?
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get/keep/ask for + a receipt; a receipt for + purchase/payment; on/within ten days of receipt (formal)
- Keep the receipt in case the jacket doesn't fit your brother.
- Could you email me a receipt for the hotel payment? I need it for work.
- Please pay the invoice within ten days of receipt.
What changed
First versionCan you send me the receipt for this cake? It's delicious.
RevisionCan you send me the recipe for this cake? It's delicious.
Receipt and recipe look almost the same, so they're easy to mix up. But for a cake you need recipe. With receipt, the sentence sounds like a request for the proof of payment for the cake.
At the end of a meal in a café, you don't ask for a receipt but for the bill: in Britain, Can we have the bill, please?, and in the US, Can we have the check? You get a receipt after you've paid: Here's your receipt.
Your turn
Keep the ___ — without it, the shop won't give you your money back.
Show the answer
receipt — The shop refunds your money when you show proof of purchase, the receipt. A recipe is instructions for a dish, and the shop has no use for it.
Describe something you bought and wanted to return or exchange. Say what it was and whether you needed the receipt.
Last month I returned a pair of headphones that kept disconnecting, and the shop asked for the receipt before giving me a refund.
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